Maria Bitner-Glindzicz Awards

Overview 

The Maria Bitner-Glindzicz Awards fund was set up with Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, including money raised by Maria’s family. Professor Maria Bitner-Glindzicz was an admired and widely respected clinical geneticist and paediatrician. She made great contributions to medicine and genetics where she led research towards the treatment of hearing and vision loss. Maria was also a champion of Early Career Researchers where she made extra efforts to support their development and recognise their achievements. These awards have been named in her memory and the wonderful work that she did at GOSH, GOS Institute of Child Health, and at the UCL Ear institute.

The Maria Bitner-Glindzicz Awards Committee:  

• Oversee the awarding of three ECR awards (not ranked) and Training and Conference Award
• Organise the Maria Bitner-Glindzicz Memorial Lecture

The Awards are open to Early Career Researchers (non-permanent, non-Fellowship) at UCL GOS ICH and clinical genetic trainees/counsellors at GOSH.

Early Career Researcher Award

This is awarded annually to three Early Career Researchers who have demonstrated exceptional achievement as part of their role at Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health or Great Ormond Street Hospital (Clinical Genetics). The three winners will each be awarded a prize of £500 (in vouchers). 

Award Eligibility 

To be eligible for the Maria Bitner-Glindzicz Early Career Researcher Award you need to:

1. Be early career research staff (PhD Student, Technician, Research Assistant, Research Associate/Post-doc/Fellow) at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, or trainees affiliated with Clinical Genetics at GOSH.
2. Must not have a personal fellowship, lectureship or a permanent employment position
3. Work in rare or complex disease in children

Application process 

To apply for this award please complete the application form. We recommend that you include evidence of personal development, citizenship and enabling as well as academic output. You need to focus on activities carried out in 2025. The application should be completed by the potential recipient of the award. Please send your submission to the Maria Bitner-Glindzicz Committee email address (MBGawards@ucl.ac.uk) with the subject line “Maria Bitner-Glindzicz ECR award 2025”. The deadline for applications is Wednesday 14th January 2026 (17:00h). Please ensure that you receive receipt of your application following submission.

More information and an application form:

Training and Conference Award

Training and Conference Award provides an opportunity for early career researchers to apply for funding to attend conferences to disseminate their research findings or to attend training to learn new skills.

The fund prioritises early career applicants who will have greater participation in a conference. The fund also prioritises training opportunities of a similar scope to attending a conference, where it can be demonstrated that the training opportunity would allow the recipient to learn a new skill or knowledge, which could also be shared or implemented within the wider team. In both scenarios, it would be necessary to demonstrate how the conference or training opportunity would benefit the recipient’s career development. Applicants must work in an area of rare or complex disease in children. Successful researchers need to acknowledge the award during any presentation and retrospective awards cannot be made (see application form for details, and for the eligibility criteria).

Deadlines for 2026: 

• Wednesday 14th January 2026 (17:00h)
• Wednesday 20th May 2026 (17:00h)
• Wednesday 9th September 2026 (17:00h)

Application form: