Bursaries

Making Your Case to Attend the Conference

Make your case for attending and show how you’ll be more valuable to your institution afterwards. We hope you can make the case for you to come to at least a day of the ARA Conference. You can also choose to join us for our Wednesday evening reception, or Thursday evening Gala Dinner. If you need help in persuading your employers, we have a model business case letter here:

Download Business Case Letter Template

If you are not able to gain institutional support, ARA members can apply for a conference bursary.

You can find the application forms at the bottom of each section – there is a separate form for ARA Bursaries and Ancestry Bursaries this year.

Deadline for applications: 10am Wednesday 22 May 2024

2022 Ancestry UK bursary holders with Ancestry staff at ARA 2022 in Chester

Bursaries - Helping you to attend Conference?

Best value in the sector

The ARA Conference is the best-value event of its kind in the sector: the full delegate fee includes accommodation, food and a concentrated three-day programme. The Conference committee recognises the difficulty many members face in finding the finances or getting time off to attend. It has therefore developed special day-attendance fees and bursaries to help people attend who might not otherwise be able.

The Bursaries

Full bursaries cover full Conference attendance (the three-day programme, two nights’ accommodation at the Holiday Inn Birmingham City Centre and three meals a day) and travel expenses of up to £100.

We have four types of bursaries this year:

ARA Bursaries

ARA Member Bursary

To apply you must be an individual member of the Association who has been a member for at least one year and who is, at the closing date for applications, either a student member, a full member, an overseas member or is registered on the conservation certificate course.

Four full ARA Bursaries are available.

New Professionals Bursary

One full bursary is available for members of the ARA Section for New Professionals who have never attended an ARA conference or received an ARA bursary of any sort.

The funds for this bursary are raised by crowd-funding.

ARA Diversity Bursaries

Two bursaries are open to members and non-members of the ARA.

Applicants need to meet the following criteria:

Have a Black and/or Minority Ethnic background
Not have a postgraduate qualification in archives, conservation or records management

(If you are a speaker at Conference from a Black and/or Minority Ethnic background, you are eligible to apply for any ARA Diversity bursary)

Click Here to Download an ARA Bursary Application Form

Ancestry Bursaries

Four bursaries are available through our Premier Conference sponsors:

Ancestry.co.uk

These bursaries are available to archivists, including archive managers, company archivists, principal archivists and collection managers from a local authority archive who have either never attended the ARA Conference before or have not attended in the last three years (i.e. were not at Belfast 2023, Chester 2022, Leeds 2019).

Click Here to Download an Ancestry Bursary Application Form