The World Gold Council is offering a free trip to Tokyo to attend Gold 2012, the international conference on gold science technology and its applications.  From the May 10, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

The Gold Scientist Prize programme has been established by the World Gold Council to recognise outstanding gold-based research performed by early-career scientists. Work eligible for consideration can be on-going studies, research completed in the last twelve months or a body of work compiled over several years in any materials science or related discipline where gold is central to the research.

The two winners will win sponsored attendance at GOLD2012 (the international conference on Gold Science Technology and its applications) in Tokyo, a round trip flight to the conference, hotel accommodation for the duration of the conference and a commemorative gold coin. They will also have the opportunity to present their work at the meeting and will be invited to submit an article to a special edition of the journal Gold Bulletin.

Full details about submissions and the deadline (May 30, 2012) are on The Gold Scientist Prize Programme webpage on the World Gold Council website (excerpted from the prize page),

The prize programme contains two categories:

• “Outstanding Young Researcher”, aimed at PhD students.
• “Outstanding Investigator”, aimed at scientists with up to seven years experience post PhD graduation.

Key Eligibility Criteria

• Entrants for the “Outstanding Young Researcher” category must currently be PhD students whose studies have focused on a novel technical use for gold.
• Entrants for the “Outstanding Investigator” category must be within, at most, seven years of completing their PhD degree and currently using gold for novel research.
• Researchers who have already submitted an abstract to present at GOLD2012 are eligible to apply retrospectively.
• Only one application per scientist will be considered. The entrant must be the original author of the abstract.

Good luck! I imagine there will be a fair amount of ‘nano’ discussion given some of the listed speakers, from the Gold 2012 Invited Speakers webpage,

• A. Stephen K. Hashmi (University of Heidelberg)
  New Options with New Ligands in Homogeneous Gold Catalysis
• Hans-Joachim Freund (Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society)
  The Surface Science of Supported Au Nanoparticles and its Relation to Catalysis
• Vincent M. Rotello (University of Massachusetts)
  Gold Nanoparticles in Biomedicine: Therapeutics and Diagnostics