We are delighted to announce the recipients of IAFOR grants and scholarships for The 14th European Conference on Arts & Humanities (ECAH2026) to be held in London, United Kingdom between July 9-13, 2026.
In total, we received 131 scholarship applications.
Launched in 2016, IAFOR’s grants and scholarships programme provides financial support to PhD students and early career academics, with the aim of helping them pursue research excellence and achieve their academic goals through interdisciplinary study and interaction.
Our warmest congratulations go to the following scholarship recipients.
IAFOR Scholarship Recipients
Peisen Ding, University of British Columbia, Canada (Oral Presentation)
108218 | Photomontage, Affective Fragments, and Urban Encounters
Peisen Ding is a sessional lecturer and PhD candidate in Art Education at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Peisen's research explores art practices engaging the built environment, identity, and affect within educational contexts.
Reza Tavakoliabandansari, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy (Oral Presentation)
106919 | Interpretive Polarization in the Analysis of Iranian Governmental Murals: Between Cultural Continuity and Visual Authoritarianism
Mr Reza Tavakoliabandansari is a PhD Candidate in Art History at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. He is currently conducting research at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin through the Erasmus+ Programme. His academic background is highly interdisciplinary, holding an MA in Product Design from Sapienza University and an MA in Painting from the University of Tehran, complemented by an International Program in Humanities at the University of Pisa. Mr Tavakoliabandansari’s core research interests lie at the intersection of Political Theory, Media Studies, and Cognitive Science, focusing on how ideological conflicts manifest in visual and institutional spaces. His current research examines Middle Eastern visual culture and political iconography in contemporary Iran. He is particularly interested in how public spaces and murals function as sites of power and cultural identity, investigating the epistemic blind spots in scholarly discourse regarding visual authoritarianism and state-sponsored arts.
Md Sidratul Muntaha, Aligarh Muslim University, India (Virtual Presentation)
104191 | Architectural Nationalism and Spatial Justice: Reimagining Development and Indigenous Belonging in Post-2014 India
Md Sidratul Muntaha is a postgraduate student currently pursuing an MA in English Literature. Their academic interests lie at the intersection of tribal literature, postcolonial studies, cultural memory, and the politics of representation. They are particularly drawn to the ways in which literature engages with ecology, voice, and subjugation, especially in Indigenous and marginalized contexts. Alongside their academic research, Muntaha has actively contributed to both creative and critical writing. They have published poems that explore questions of identity, belonging, and cultural inheritance, and their book reviews and critical essays engage with contemporary and canonical works, reflecting a commitment to bridging scholarly inquiry with public literary dialogue. These publications demonstrate not only a versatility across genres but also a sustained effort to bring critical attention to underrepresented perspectives. Muntaha’s theoretical engagements span a wide range of thinkers, including Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, and René Girard, whose frameworks help ground their analysis.
About IAFOR’s Grants and Scholarships
IAFOR is dedicated to helping young scholars achieve their research and academic goals, while also encouraging them to apply the principles of interdisciplinary study to their work. IAFOR offers travel and accommodation grants as well as full or partial scholarships covering conference registration fees to PhD students and early career academics who might not otherwise have the financial resources to be able to attend our academic conferences.
Awards are based on the appropriateness of the educational opportunity in relation to the applicant’s field of study, financial need, and contributions to their community and to IAFOR’s mission of interdisciplinarity. Scholarships will be awarded based on availability of funds from IAFOR and will vary with each conference. The Programme Committee of the relevant IAFOR conference will award scholarships to eligible applicants with exceptional abstracts accepted for presentation following the blind peer review process.
For further information on IAFOR grants and scholarships, please visit the Grants and Scholarships page of the IAFOR website.
2026 Grants and Scholarships
Grants and scholarships are still available for IAFOR conferences with open abstract submission deadlines. If you are eligible for an IAFOR grant or scholarship and would like to be considered, please submit your abstract to the conference you would like to attend and select the checkbox for the relevant award during the submission process.
