This scholarship is aimed at first-time speakers at the IATEFL BESIG Annual Conference. It offers a great opportunity to connect with a supportive and inspiring community of business English professionals, share your ideas, and make your work visible. Beyond the conference itself, it opens the door to ongoing involvement and collaboration within IATEFL BESIG throughout the year.

To apply, you should:

• have been an IATEFL BESIG member for at least six months and have taken part in BESIG activities (e.g. contributing to the blog or, or attending events);

• be willing to give a presentation or lead a workshop on business English teaching at the IATEFL BESIG Annual Conference 2026 and share your experience in a short post after the conference in one of our publications;

• submit a short statement together with you proposal submission (max. 1,800 characters, including spaces) outlining your background, motivation, and how you discovered IATEFL BESIG;

• submit your presentation or workshop proposal by 30 June 2026, 16:00 (UK time).

Applicants will be notified of the outcome by the IATEFL BESIG Committee by 15 July 2026.

The scholarship includes:

• one year’s membership of IATEFL (including BESIG);

• free registration for the annual IATEFL BESIG Conference;

• a grant of up to £750 (against receipts) to support travel and accommodation.

Click here to submit your proposal.

The IATEFL BESIG Facilitator Scholarship enables an IATEFL Business English SIG (BESIG) member to attend the IATEFL Annual Conference and expects the winner to give a presentation during the BESIG Showcase.

This scholarship is for a business English practitioner who has been an IATEFL BESIG member for at least six months at the time of the application. It will be awarded to a person interested in starting up and/or facilitating local business English events in their home area and contributing to IATEFL BESIG through articles for Business Issues or any of BESIG’s web-based communication tools.

The scholarship consists of:

• registration for the BESIG Pre-Conference Event, if one is planned

• registration for the IATEFL Conference

• GBP 1,100.00 payable at the conference, on submission of receipts, which you can use towards your travel, accommodation or any other conference-related expenses.

To qualify you must:

• be an individual member of IATEFL and the Business English SIG

• have previously contributed to IATEFL BESIG, e.g. by writing an article for the newsletter, contributing to the blog, doing a weekend workshop, taking part in the IATEFL BESIG Annual Conference, or organising a local event

• agree to give a presentation or lead a workshop on an aspect of teaching business English during the IATEFL BESIG Showcase at the IATEFL Conference; please note that this needs to be a presentation / workshop which has not been given at an earlier conference

• write a 700-word report of your Conference experience for the Business Issues newsletter by the end of May 2027.

To be considered you should submit:

• a speaker proposal through the IATEFL website on business English by the scholarship deadline that adheres to IATEFL proposal guidelines

• and a 400–500 word summary outlining your plans for promoting IATEFL BESIG and your past, present and planned future contributions to the SIG.

The submission deadline is 16.00 (UK time) on Wednesday 17 June 2026. Early submissions are very welcome; late submissions will not be considered.

The result of your application will be emailed to you between 11 and 21 August 2026. Please do NOT contact the IATEFL Head Office about scholarship decisions; the Scholarship Committee will send everyone the results as soon as they are available.

Click here to apply.

Previous Facilitator Scholarship Winners

• 2011 - Mercedes Viola - Uruguay

• 2012 - Jennifer Verschoor - Argentina

• 2013 - Atul Sharma - India

• 2014 - Justine Arena & Dana Poklepovic - Brazil & Argentina

• 2015 - Olena Korol & Evelina Miscin - Ukraine & Croatia

• 2016 - Jennie Wright & Elena Mateva - Germany & Russia

• 50th anniversary scholarship - Oksana Hera & Lalitha Murthy - Ukraine & India

• 2017 - Rob Howard - Brazil

• 2018 - Alan Simpson - Japan

• 2019 - Andreea Nechifor - Romania

• 2020-2021 - Mary Sousa - Hungary

• 2022 - Karin Heuert Galvão - Brazil

• 2023 - Julia Koifman - Israel

• 2024 - Michelle Hunter - United Kingdom