The Hertz Foundation Travel Fund, launched in 2025, provides targeted travel support to enrolled Hertz Fellows who are in school or within a decade of completing their degree. The award aims to remove the cost barrier when a conference, field visit or cross-sector experience would advance a fellow’s research or professional network.
Practical support for career-making moments
The fund is designed for early-stage researchers and innovators who need funding to attend an event or activity that directly contributes to their work. According to the foundation, recipients must be current fellows or alumni less than 10 years out from their degree. To date, roughly 40 fellows have received support.
One recent recipient, Grace Ra Kim, used a Travel Fund award to stitch together a short, intensive programme of experiences that included watching a rocket launch and presenting ideas to potential collaborators. The foundation reports that the travel award allowed her to capitalise on several opportunities in a single trip, widening both technical exposure and cross-sector connections.
“It’s not every day you get to witness a rocket launch in person.”
That moment — watching a Falcon 9 lift off from Cape Canaveral with a CubeSat that had roots in her undergraduate work — illustrates how singular events can catalyse new directions in a researcher’s career. The Travel Fund helps bridge the gap between identifying such an opportunity and actually getting there.
Who benefits and what it covers
The Travel Fund is intended for activities that clearly support a fellow’s development. Examples include:
- Attending technical conferences to present research or network;
- Participating in interdisciplinary workshops that spark new collaborations;
- Visiting laboratories, observatories or launch sites to inspect facilities or attend milestone events;
- Short residencies that expose fellows to industry partnerships or entrepreneurship ecosystems.
The foundation combines the Travel Fund with other programmes to amplify impact: in Kim’s case, she paired the award with existing ties to a CubeSat project and academic invitations to create an efficient itinerary of high-value events.
| Programme fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Established | 2025 |
| Eligible fellows | Enrolled or within 10 years of degree completion |
| Number of awards to date | About 40 |
What this means for South Africans considering similar paths
While the Hertz Fund serves a specific fellowship community, its model holds lessons for South African students, researchers and early-career professionals who face travel costs that block opportunity. Small, targeted travel grants can multiply the benefit of existing mentorship, research roles and institutional partnerships.
Organisations and universities here could use a similar approach: quick-turnaround awards for conference attendance, short-term industry placements or attendance at milestone events such as launches, exhibitions or sector summits. These seed moments often lead to new collaborations, industry contacts and funding streams that would be harder to secure remotely.
For individuals, the story underlines two practical tips: plan travel to combine multiple high-value activities on a single trip, and leverage institutional relationships (supervisors, collaborators, alumni networks) to stretch limited funding further. The Hertz example shows that one well-timed trip can deliver technical insight and serendipitous meetings that influence a career for years.
As more funders recognise the catalytic role of mobility, smaller, targeted travel awards may become a cost-effective way to broaden participation in high-impact research and innovation—locally and internationally.
