NEBRASKA INBRE
UNDERGRADUATE TRAVEL AWARD POLICY & APPLICATION
The Nebraska INBRE program provides funding to support INBRE Scholars travel to attend and present at conferences.
Guidelines
- Individuals Eligible for Support. Funds may be used to defray covered expenses (see 3 below) for undergraduate students who are traveling to a meeting/conference to present their scholarly work. The undergraduate research project must have a faculty mentor that has been involved with the student project. Students must be current INBRE Scholars who have not yet graduated.
- Travel Qualifying for Support. INBRE Scholars may seek support to travel to any venue in which they will be publicly presenting scholarly work. This provision will be interpreted as liberally as possible, but simply attending a conference as an audience member will not qualify. Travel funded by INBRE must comply with all relevant policies and procedures of the University. Even where an award has been approved before the travel takes place, reimbursement for some or all participants may be disallowed if it is established that any applicable policy or procedure was violated.
- Covered Expenses. INBRE will reimburse:
- Transportation costs for individuals (e.g., plane tickets) or for groups (e.g., van charges)
- Lodging (e.g., hotel rooms, dorm rooms)
- Meal expenses (excluding alcohol; please provide an itemized receipt)
- Registration fees
- Application Process.
- From the process of applying for an award, INBRE Scholars should learn about the expectations that grantors have regarding stewardship of their funds. For this reason, all applications for support must be written by the INBRE Scholar(s) requesting the monies. When a single Scholar will be traveling, she or he should apply individually. When several Scholars will travel to the same event together, they should apply as a group, but each Scholar should sign the application to indicate her or his willingness to accept responsibility.
- Although INBRE Scholars will be held to the highest possible standards regarding their use of INBRE funds, it is prudent for INBRE to insist that a faculty member endorse the purpose of their travel as being academically sound. For this reason, each application must carry the signature of their faculty mentor who will accept responsibility for working with the Scholar(s) on the logistics and funding of their travel. (This does not necessarily entail that the faculty sponsor will her- or himself travel with the students, though that is often the case.)
- Minimally your proposal should include the following items. It should generally be possible to present all of the required information in one or two single-spaced pages.
- Scholar name, email address, and contact phone number
- basic information about the event student(s) will be attending (full title of the event, sponsor, location, dates, purpose, invitees)
- an explanation of each scholar’s role at the event (poster or oral presenter)
- a brief explanation of how the travel is important for the scholar’s research, academic, or career goals
- a straightforward budget showing how requested funds will be spent
- a brief discussion of what efforts have been made to keep costs reasonably low and mention of any other sources that the scholar has approached or will approach for funding.
- confirmation that the Scholar’s abstract has been accepted to the conference/meeting
- signatures of all participating scholars (see above) and the faculty sponsor (see b above)
- Applications should be submitted as soon as all relevant information is available and, except in extraordinary circumstances, at least two weeks before the travel will occur. Inevitably, funding will be made available to eligible applicants on a modified “first come, first serve” basis.
- The INBRE PI, who may consult further with the faculty sponsor, will review applications promptly and convey her or his decision to the student and faculty sponsor.
- Obtaining Award Funds.
- Additional documents required: Check with your home institution to see what is required specifically by them.
- Receipts: INBRE Scholars and faculty sponsors also share in the responsibility for documenting awardee travel in appropriate ways. Scholars should particularly note that they need to keep receipts for ALL expenses paid in order to be reimbursed for those expenses. Paper receipts must be submitted in their original paper form. Receipts must also be itemized (that is, they must include a description of each item/service purchased.) Please submit all travel receipts, etc. to the INBRE Grant Protocol Associate as soon as possible after your conference.
- Conference Photo: Along with receipts, Scholars must submit a photo of themselves at the conference e.g. while giving the talk, standing by their poster, etc. This photo may be used on the INBRE website or in other media (Facebook, the INBRE brochure, etc.) to promote undergraduate research.