ESMO is pleased to offer a limited number of travel grants to support patient advocates in attending the Patient Advocacy Track at the ESMO Congress 2025, taking place in Berlin, Germany, from 17 to 21 October 2025.
Application deadline: 7 May 2025
Important: only patient advocates who are active ESMO members will be eligible to apply for a travel grant. Patient advocates can join ESMO for a very reasonable annual fee and enjoy full member benefits which include access to all of our resources.
ESMO membership must be active ten (10) working days prior to the submission deadline. Please visit the ESMO website to check eligibility criteria and benefits, and to complete the membership application.
Please review the Patient Travel Grant information and guidelines provided below before proceeding to submit your application via the designated link.
Patient Travel Grant Information and Guidelines
What are my responsibilities by accepting a travel grant?
- Full attendance: You are required to attend the entire Patient Advocacy Track sessions in person. This means participating in all four sessions as outlined in the official agenda. Partial attendance or virtual participation will not fulfill the grant requirements and may result in your costs not being reimbursed.
- Confirmation of attendance: As part of this year's updated process, you must confirm your attendance in advance, when requested by ESMO, to secure your travel grant. Failure to confirm by the given deadline may result in your grant being reassigned to another applicant. ESMO will send a confirmation request in September.
- Post-Congress testimonial: If requested by ESMO, you will be asked to provide a brief testimonial that can be posted on the ESMO website/used in event reports/used on ESMO social media channels. This can be a written testimonial and/or a short (onsite) video. To be received by the end of October 2025.
What does a patient travel grant cover?
- A travel grant helps to cover travel, hotel, and registration expenses and is based primarily on an individual’s financial need, as well as current advocacy activities. Each grant will reimburse travel and accommodation costs up to a maximum of 1000 EUR, and includes free registration to the ESMO Congress 2025.
How will applications be evaluated?
- ESMO strives for an equal geographic representation of patient advocate organisations, an even participation between large and small patient advocate groups as well as balanced representation of cancer types.
What is the application process?
The application submission deadline is 7 May 2025.
Prior to Congress
- During the submission process, all applicants will be required to submit a motivation letter, outlining how attending the ESMO Patient Advocacy Track 2025 aligns with their advocacy work, goals, and impact. One page Word document.
- All applicants will be notified by the end of June 2025 as to whether their application has been successful. Successful applicants will receive an email advising to proceed in arranging travel and accommodation.
- To ensure effective planning and the best use of available resources, all successful applicants will be required to confirm their attendance ahead of the ESMO Congress 2025. ESMO will send a confirmation request in September. Applicants who do not confirm within the specified timeframe may have their travel grant reallocated to another eligible candidate.
Post-Congress
- A ‘Statement of Expenses’ form is to be submitted after Congress with relevant invoices. The form and invoices must be provided in one, combined PDF. Please do not include invoices for which you are not seeking reimbursement.
- Reimbursement will be processed after ESMO 2025 and one month (maximum) from receipt of details.
- The deadline to provide receipts is 21 November 2025 (after which date reimbursement requests will no longer be accepted).
- Please see our ESMO Congress 2025: Patient Advocates Travel Grant Reimbursement Policy page for more information.