Balsher Singh Sidhu
Doctor of Philosophy in Resources, Environment and Sustainability (PhD)
Reorienting rainfed agriculture: Increasing resilience to climate variability through optimized irrigation strategies
Graduate Student Travel and Research Dissemination Fund
Deadline
Applications are accepted year-round
Annual Value
maximum of $500 per graduate student per degree program
Citizenship
Canadian
Permanent Resident
International
Degree Level
Masters
Doctoral
Graduate students are eligible for reimbursement from the Graduate Student Travel and Research Dissemination Fund once per degree program. The Travel and Research Dissemination Fund provides funding support to a combined maximum of $500 per graduate student.
Travelling outside of Canada: When students are planning travel outside of Canada for university purposes, they have obligations under UBC’s Student Safety Abroad Policy (SC12). Students are required to have adequate travel medical insurance, to register their travel on UBC’s Safety Abroad Registry, and to use the resources provided by UBC to support safe travel planning and risk management. In locations where the Government of Canada has official travel advisories in place, students are required to request High-Risk Authorization before travelling. For more information, see: https://safetyabroad.ubc.ca or email safety.abroad@ubc.ca.
Eligibility
To be eligible for the Travel and Research dissemination Fund:
The Travel and Research Dissemination Fund assists graduate students in sharing the results of their research with professional audiences, to contribute to students' professional development, and to provide them with career advancement opportunities.
- Students must be registered in a graduate program administered by the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. This excludes a small number of programs, such as MBA, MM, MEng, etc. To check if your program is administered by the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, please refer to the list of graduate programs offered at UBC.
- Part-time graduate students are eligible for this award.
- Expenses associated with a presentation or with open access publishing are eligible for reimbursement
- The $500 per degree program limit applies to the total request for reimbursement; typically this will mean reimbursement of either presentation or publication.
Presentation
- Students must be selected through a competitive, open, and publicly advertised process to:
- present a paper or poster virtually or in person at an academic conference, such as annual disciplinary meetings or more focused workshops or symposia, or
- participate in, perform or exhibit an artistic work virtually or in person.
- The conference or competition must take place while the student is enrolled full-time in a graduate degree program. Students on official on-leave status are not enrolled full-time. Full-time enrollment ceases at the end of the month when all degree requirements are completed, not at the time of convocation
- Multiple students cannot receive the full travel award for the same paper / poster / performance. In cases where there are multiple presenters of a co-authored paper or poster, (i) a single student (normally, the student who made the greatest contribution to the paper or poster) may apply for and receive the full travel award or (ii) the travel award may be split among multiple presenters (this should be indicated in the travel award application).
- Students must not have previously received the travel award during the same degree program
Eligible Expense for presentations
- travel (at economy airfare prices)
- accommodation
- conference registration
- meals
For information about per diem rates and other eligible travel expenses, please see UBC Policy FM8 - Travel and Related Expenses.
Open Access Publishing
Please be sure to learn about open access publishing before submitting to journals/publishers, and be particularly aware of the risks associated with “predatory publishers”.
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For journals, any included in the Directory of Open Access Journals, or those whose editorial policies meet the criteria for inclusion in DOAJ, are eligible.
Note: We are opening this fund up to reimbursement for open access publishing in response to travel restrictions due to COVID-19. As we would like to respond quickly, we have not yet set up processes fully. If you have recently or will shortly publish open access, please email graduate.awards@ubc.ca so that we can learn from your case to create a process/form for future applications.
- If students have a peer-reviewed publication accepted for open access publication and the open access incurs a fee (often, "article process charge") from the journal or publisher, students may apply for reimbursement of this fee.
- The student has to be enrolled in their program at the time of acceptance of the publication.
Eligible expenses for open access publishing
- article processing charge
Application Procedures
Application for Reimbursement
Students must submit the following to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies:
- Completed Graduate Student Travel Fund Application. Application must be signed by student and faculty supervisor.
- Proof of conference presentation or program agenda.
- Complete conference program agenda, if claiming meals. Actual meal receipts or per diem can only be claimed for meals not provided or included in conference registration.
Note: The complete application can be submitted by email to graduate.awards@ubc.ca if all parts of the application are electronic. If any part of the application is paper (paper meal receipts, paper boarding passes, paper conference programme), a paper application must be submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies office.
Reimbursement to Student
In addition to application materials listed under “Application for Reimbursement” students must submit original, itemized, and dated receipts for all expenses claimed. Credit card receipts that are not itemized are not acceptable for reimbursement. For air travel, original ticket with passenger itinerary/receipt is required. A passenger itinerary/receipt is required for e-tickets.
Funds will be assigned to the student as an award via the Student Service Centre. Students who have signed up for direct deposit will receive the funds directly in their personal bank account. Otherwise, a cheque will be issued that the student will pick up from Brock Hall.
Reimbursement to UBC Faculty Supervisor
In addition to application materials listed under “Application for Reimbursement” student must submit both:
- copies of receipts which were submitted to faculty supervisor or department for reimbursement
- a copy of travel/payment requisition originally submitted by department to Financial Services
Funds will be transferred directly from the Graduate Student Travel Fund into the faculty supervisor's research account.
Meet Award Holders
Further Information
Applications for reimbursement will be accepted only after travel is completed. Otherwise, there is no deadline for submission - students may submit Graduate Student Travel Fund applications at any time.
Complete Graduate Student Travel Fund applications are processed approximately every two weeks by Awards staff. Processing of complete applications from August to November may take a bit longer, as this is the peak period for Graduate Awards staff.