BCS Travel Awards for MIE Geneva 2020

Opportunity for Future Leaders in Health and Care Informatics to attend the Medical Informatics Europe (MIE) 2020 in Geneva

The BCS Health and Care Executive Committee is offering four £2,000 scholarships for Health and Care Informaticians to attend MIE 2020 in Geneva, Switzerland, in April. MIE is the annual European Informatics conference of the European Federation of Medical Informatics (EFMI). BCS is the national member body of EFMI.

Two of these awards are specifically for applicants who are working in Primary Care or a Primary Care Network, whatever their discipline and however part time. This would include those in vocational training. The other two awards are open to anyone working in Health and Care Informatics.

The applicants will be judged against the following characteristics.
• Undertaking a post graduate degree in health informatics at a UK university
• A member of the current digital academy cohort
• Early in their health informatics career, not necessarily in their clinical career if relevant.
• Demonstrable potential to make a meaningful contribution to Health and Care Informatics.

The winning applicants will need to be members of the BCS (and in case of the primary care awards, the Primary Health Care Specialist Group (PHCSG)) prior to booking. This will ensure the members rate, when booking. Membership of BCS will need to be at Associate or higher level.

To apply you need to write a proposal on one side of A4, maximum 800 words, in the following structure:
• Who I am, how I meet the award criteria and why I want to attend?
• What areas of health informatics covered by the conference are of most interest and relevance to me?
• How I can help promote Health and Care Informatics?
• How I can support the BCS and EFMI goals of improving participation by students and early career professionals in health informatics?
• How attendance will contribute to my personal and career development?

Submit your application as a pdf file attachment and send it to groups@bcs.uk.
The closing date for applications is 8th February 2020.

Applications will be reviewed, and the winner selected by a sub-committee made up from the BCS Health & Care executive committee and the Primary Healthcare Specialist group committee. The committee decision is final. The winner will be notified no later than 21st February 2020. The winner must commit to registering for the conference and ensuring active membership of BCS as soon as possible and be able to claim all travel expenses (to a maximum total budget of £2,000 including conference fee, travel, accommodation and subsistence) by 15th May 2020.

The winners will be expected to submit a short report for publication (at no charge) in BMJ Health & Care Informatics, the official journal of BCS Health & Care.
In the case of the primary care winners:
• They will be expected to write a 1000-word blog for the PHCSG website.
• They will be encouraged to contribute to social media during the event. To be agreed with the PHCSG social media representative prior to the event.
• They may also be invited to give a short report to the 2020 PHCSG conference held in October.

Full details about MIE 2020 can be found at: Medical Informatics Europe 2020 - Geneva

John Robinson
Chair of Primary Health Care Specialist Group