Graduate Student & Post-doc Travel Award

The SEER Center Graduate Student & Post-doc Travel Award provides support to Ph.D. students or Post-doctoral researchers who wish to present a scholarly oral presentation or poster at a national or international professional meeting.

Travel Award Application Guidelines

Award Amount and Deadline:

  • The award will be offered three times per year.
  • For each award period, either one award of $1000 or two awards of $500 will be offered.

Award Deadline 1 May 15, for travel between July 1 and October 31

Award Deadline 2 September 15, for travel between November 1 and February 28

Award Deadline 3 February 15, for travel between March 1 and June 30

Allowable Expenses: Registration, transportation (e.g. economy airfare, travel to and from airport), housing, and per diem (see Federal limits) can be included in the proposed budget. Expenses for conducting research while traveling are not allowed.

Requirements for Receiving a SEER Travel Award:

  • Awards are available only to graduate students and post-docs who are presenting education research conducted through UGA. Presentation of work under the purview of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning cannot be funded by this travel award.
  • Students must be in good academic standing, and registered full time during the semester when the application is submitted and during the semester of travel. Post-docs must be employed at The University of Georgia at the time of travel.
  • Applicants should consider in advance the dates of travel and the award deadlines. The awards committee will not review applications in between deadlines.
  • Due to the limited availability of travel funds, preference will be given to active members of The SEER Center. Active participation is defined as being an affiliate member or core member who attends as able SEER Center meetings, retreats, and/or journal clubs and who presents at these events. Extra consideration will also be given to those who serve in a leadership or committee capacity.
  • Applicants are required to be actively participating in the meeting, conference, or workshop that they are requesting funds to attend. Active participation is defined as the presentation of a paper or poster. In the case of co-authored papers or posters, only the primary presenter may receive funding.
  • Applicants can only submit one application per meeting, conference, or workshop. Complete application packages must be submitted for each application. Only one application can be submitted per award period, but applications can be submitted in multiple award periods.
  • Awards are limited to one award per individual, per academic year. Those having received funds previously during the academic year are ineligible to apply.
  • Awards for multiple individuals attending the same conference will be reviewed independently.
  • If an awardee finds that he/she cannot attend the conference after expenses have been paid by the SEER Center, barring an emergency, he/she will be financially responsible for reimbursing the University.
  • If evidence presents itself that requests are being made for duplicate reimbursements from multiple sources, the award will be forfeited.

SEER Center Graduate Student & Post-doc Travel Award application guidelines

All components must be submitted before an application will be considered for funding by the SEER Center Graduate Students, Post-docs, and Undergraduates (GPU) Executive Board.

Applications must include the following:

  • CV
  • Statement of involvement with the SEER Center GPU – no more than 100 words
  • Travel Justification explaining nature of travel and relation of travel or training to professional development – 1 page or less
  • Includes short and long term career goals and how this travel will ultimately support the applicant’s career, as well as any broader impacts to the SEER Center and/or education research community
  • Budget Justification – Budget template and example justification provided
  • Please complete the yellow fields on the provided template. Be sure to include active links for the per diem rates for your conference’s locality (zip code).
  • Indicate if other funds are available to help pay for travel including the funding source and amount.
  • This should be the abstract submitted for the conference.
  • A copy of the acceptance letter or confirmation letter indicating you will be participating in the meeting or conference for record and the UGA Travel Authorization form. These materials should be provided once received even if they are not received before the application deadline or award announcement.

Applications must be emailed to seergrad@uga.edu by 5pm on the date of the deadline. Late applications will not be considered for funding. Please direct inquiries to seegrad@uga.edu.

Application review panel:

Applications will be reviewed by a panel of three SEER Center GPU members (panel is volunteer-based). This panel will consist of at least one post-doc and two Ph.D. students. Each application will be reviewed by all 3 reviewers. Applicants are not eligible to serve on the review panel. Reviewers will read applications and independently score them from a rubric. The composite score from all reviewers will be ranked, which determines the priority of an applicant’s funding. One of the volunteers will serve as panel chair and oversee the review process, including answering questions, distribution of applications to panelists, collection and tallying of scores, notification of applicants, and making sure that applications are reviewed in a timely manner.

The panel will have 2 weeks after the deadline to review each application and submit scores. The SEER Center Executive Director will serve as the faculty contact should any problems arise. Final decisions will be approved by the SEER Center GPU Graduate Student Chair and/or Post-doc Chair and a faculty volunteer from the SEER Center Executive Committee. If a GPU chair has submitted an application, the panel chair may directly correspond with the SEER Center Executive Director with any questions or award decisions.

Award Notifications:

Awardees will be announced ~2.5 weeks after the application deadline. Applicants will receive an email notification of whether or not they received the award prior to an email announcement on the SEER Center listserv. Award recipients will be asked to submit a photo of themselves at the conference as well as a short synopsis of their experience upon return to campus.

Reimbursement:

Students must follow UGA travel regulations (travel authority, provide original receipts with expense report).  A travel authority will need to be filled out and approved in order for the funds to be available.