Grants Question and Answers
What things can I write a GSA grant for?
How much money can I get from a GSA grant?
Where do I get the application forms?
Will a GSA grant cover all of my expenses?
What if I turn in an application that is not complete?
How is the grant funding decided?
What is not covered in travel expenses?
What is not covered in research expenses?
How do I get the money for my GSA grant?
What if I end up not spending all the money I was awarded?
Do I have to have a faculty signature even if I am just attending a conference?
Why are the deadlines set the way they are? What if I've already paid for the expenses for my conference?
Q. What things can I write a GSA grant for?
A. GSA grants can be written for three types of expenses.
1) Research expenses. If your research requires you to purchase certain materials or for items such as copying expenses, you can request a GSA grant to help cover some of the expense. In the Grants Rules and Guideline sections, what items can and cannot be approved is listed.
2) Presenting at a Conference. If you are invited to present at a conference, you can request a GSA grant to help cover some of the travel expenses. In the Grants Rules and Guidelines sections, what travel expenses can and cannot be covered is listed.
3) Attending at a Conference. If you wish to attend a conference, you can request a GSA grant to help cover some of the travel expenses. In the Grants Rules and Guidelines sections, what travel expenses can and cannot be covered is listed. Please also note Conference Attendance grants have a lower maximum amount of funding.
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Q. How much money can I get from a GSA grant?
A. This will vary from year to year. For the 2009-10 year, the following awards are as follows:
Research and Conference Presentation – up to $600
Conference Attendance – up to $200
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Q. Where do I get the application forms?
A. All of our forms are online. In order to help save costs, we do have have any forms pre-printed out.
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Q. How many grants can I get?
A. Graduate students may receive two grants per fiscal year. Depending on the number of grants, GSA may implement the following rule. The 2nd grant will only be eligible half of the 1st grant caps. In other words, if you apply for a Conference Presentation grant (current cap of $600) and then later apply for a Research grant, you would only be eligible to receive up to $300 (half of $600).
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Q. Will a GSA cover all my expenses?
Unfortunately, GSA has a finite amount of money. In the past we have found that if we were to completely fund graduate student’s conference and research expenses, we would be severely limited in the number of students we could issue grants too.
Instead, GSA has decided to put certain funding caps for each type of request. While this means the GSA grants cannot fully fund most people’s expenses, it is the fairest means of dispersing the funds available to us.
The GSA strongly stresses that you not count on the funding as guaranteed. Due to the varying amount of requests we receive and the change in budget each year, we cannot promise everyone will get the maximum amount of funding.
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Q. What if I turn in an application that is not complete?
The GSA President will try to review each application that is turned in. If an application is found to be incomplete, the GSA President will try to notify the applicant by email. However, as it gets closer to the grant deadline and as the number of applications turned in increases, the GSA President cannot guarantee that every application will be reviewed before the deadline.
Applicants can email the GSA President to check on the status of their application or any questions. Earlier is always better. The GSA President will try their best to meet/answer any applicants concerns, but this cannot be guaranteed, especially as the deadline gets closer.
IT IS ULTIMATLY THE APPLICANT’S RESPONSIBILITY TO ENSURE THEIR APPLICATION IS COMPLETE!
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Q. How is the grant funding decided?
A. After the application deadline, the GSA President and the GSA Council meet and review all the applications.
Usually the first step is to find applications with missing information or not all materials are turned in. These applications are dismissed and they will not receive funding. Generally minor grammatical errors or omission of minor information (such as not checking which college you belong to) will not prevent an applicant from getting funded. However, omission of major items (such as your cover letter, letter from conference confirming your acceptance, conference documentation, etc.) will be a cause for dismissal. The GSA Council and President have full discretion as to what is considered a minor item or a major item.
Next, applications are reviewed and prioritized by first time applicants, research requests, conference presentation requests, and finally conference attendance requests. The council then votes on what they feel is the fairest and best way to award the funds. In general, a strong effort is made to ensure everyone gets some funds, but again, we cannot promise this. All academic fields are treated equally (i.e. psychology presentations are not favored more than choral presentation).
The GSA does reserve the right to deny funding for any reason.
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Q. What is not covered in travel expenses?
A. This is a list of expenses not to be covered by GSA funds, though it is not exclusive.
- Spouse/child/friend travel expenses are not eligible for GSA funding. The GSA grant is meant to cover your expenses.
- Alcohol and food purchases are not covered.
- Membership fees. Many organizations that hold conferences require presenters to join their organization. You cannot use GSA funds to pay for membership costs, though you can use GSA funds to pay for the registration fees.
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Q. What is not covered in research expenses?
A. The GSA understands that many graduate students will be doing a wide variety of research and will be try to accommodate them. However, certain items cannot be bought with GSA funds.
Also, keep in mind that the GSA expects that any permanent equipment/non-consumable materials bought with GSA grant money will stay with the University. You are buying this with student money, and the equipment will stay here so that future students can use it as well. This even includes items that were partially funded by GSA monies.
These are some of the items that cannot be bought with GSA funds.
- Textbooks, music scores, etc.
- Payments to individuals (research assistants, etc). This includes transcriptions done by peers who are not certified transcriptionists. (Transcription fees are covered if they are done by a certified transcriptionist, and the applicant can produce copy of such certification.)
- Research subject incentives (food, money, gift cards, etc.)
- Thesis/dissertation publishing expenses (copy and binding costs)
- Fees involved in the publication of research
- Tuition costs
- Software that is available on campus (i.e. you cannot use GSA money to buy your own copy of SPSS). In general, graduate students requesting money to buy a specialized software program need to understand they must make a strong case as to why they need this program, why it is vital to their research, and exactly which University computer the software will ultimately end up at. Again, this is a material the university will keep so that future students can have use of it.
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Q. How do I get the money for my GSA grant?
A. GSA grant monies are issued in the form of reimbursements. After you receive your Award Letter, print that out and take that, along with your receipts, to the UC Business Office (it’s in the University Center Card Office). You may only submit receipts once, so be sure to keep record and verification of all expenditures together. Recipient’s name must appear on original receipts.
If expenditures are charged to another person’s credit card, you must arrange for a supplemental receipt to be prepared verifying that you are related to the expenditure; even if it is a handwritten receipt from the vendor, hotel, etc.
Make sure to get your receipts to the Business Office by the deadline listed in your Award Letter. In some cases, an extension can be granted. All extension requests must be made to the GSA President. However, an extension cannot be guaranteed, so it is recommended to get your materials turned into the Business Office by the deadline.
You should receive reimbursement within two weeks after turning in receipts to the Business Office.
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Q. What if I end up not spending all the money I was awarded?
A. It is reallocated back to the GSA budget. The business office will not give you back anything beyond approved expenditures and your receipts.
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Q. Do I have to have a faculty signature even if I am just attending a conference?
A. Yes, a faculty signature is required on ALL grants.
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Why are the deadlines set the way they are? What if I've already paid for the expenses for my conference?
A. GSA's budget operates on a Fiscal year timeline. This means that every July we get our allocations from student fees. Therefore, our budget year starts in July. This is why there are two summer grant, the fiscal year "splits" summer in two.
Otherwise, the year is broken up into different grant sessions so that GSA can more evenly distribute the money, keep the grants they have to review manageable, and ensure a somewhat timely reimbursement of money. In the past, GSA used to award on a first come/first served basis, but this was unfair to grad students with conferences at the end of the year. By dividing the grants into four sperate reviews, we are more fair in how we award the grants.
We do realize that this timeline might not be the best for everyone (indeed if you have a conference in early October, you do have to wait till November before you could be reimbursed). However, there really is no better way to split the year. If we broke up the grants monthly, it would be hard to disperse the funds evenly. For instance, there might be a lot of conferences in October and only one in November, meaning the November conference applicants would probably get more money. Likewise, conferences changes when they are held on a yearly basis, so there is not good way to track it.
Also, from a practicality standpoint, a monthly grant review would be a budgetary nightmare. It would be hard to track how many times a person has recieved a grant and what the status of the budget is.
In the end, GSA would just like to remind applicants to consider GSA grants as supplemental and realize it might be some time before you receive the grant.