WMS funds projects across North and South America, Europe and Asia in first 2026 funding round

The latest round of project proposals has resulted in the award of more than £80,000 to support projects all over the world.

This is the first of two funding rounds for 2026. The second round has a proposal submission deadline of 7 September, with notifications due by 16 November.

Submitted project proposals are reviewed by the WMS Executive Board and awards are based on published criteria.

The funding for this round is as follows:

• Tamara Dangouloff has secured up to £15,400 for the multilingual dissemination of WMS lectures. The two-part lecture series will include one adult and one paediatric lecture. Each lecture will be translated into eight languages.
• Gork Fernandez, Annelies Herman and Marise Saad have secured £5,000 to support the organisation of the AcadeMYO Summer School of Myology. The funding will cover the travel and accommodation costs for invited speakers.
• Laurent Servais has secured £2,000 to support speaker and patient travel expenses for a newborn screening workshop in Kyiv, Ukraine.
• Megan Waldrop has secured up to £10,000 to bring one member of each of the WMS Regional Networks and a member of the Myology Developments Across the World Committee to the Nationwide Children’s Hospital/ Ohio State University Annual Myology Training Course in the USA.
• Anne Schanzer has secured £10,000 toward the German-French Myositis Congress.
• Gisele Bonne and Ichizo Nishino have secured up to £5,000 to help cover travel expenses for 10 participants in the Franco-Japonais Myology Workshop.
• Jorge Bevilacqua has secured up to £20,000 to support speaker expenses and travel fellowships for delegates at EVELAM 2026.
• Jaako Sarparanta, in cooperation with the WMS Environmental Sustainability Committee, has secured up to £10,000 to support sustainable travel to WMS 2027 in Helsinki, Finland. All WMS member delegates will be eligible to apply for a share of the funding for using travel routes that avoid flights.
• Jantima Tanboon and Ichizo Nishino have secured up to £20,000 to cover invited speaker travel and accommodation costs and early to mid-career travel fellowships for people attending Thai-NEMS – AOMC in Thailand in 2027.

Our project proposals programme supports our ambition of breaking down demographic barriers, making sure everyone within our community has equal access to learning and resources while continuing our collective efforts to ensure that scientists around the world can network, learn from one another, share science and foster collaboration in the field.

For more information about the programme, including details of how to submit your own bid, please visit the project proposals page of the WMS website.

The images used to illustrate this article are from projects previously funded through the WMS project proposals programme.