Conference Travel Award

GSG is proud to present this one-of-a-kind conference travel award to the graduate students of University of Cincinnati. The GSG Conference Travel Award is provided to financially assist graduate students in presenting their research at an academic conference, and/or attending a research conference to develop their professional skills. If you have questions, please reach out to GSG Treasurer (gsg-treasurer@mail.uc.edu).

Before You Begin

  • All other travel awards from individual colleges (e.g., CEAS and CECH) are managed and administered by the colleges. Please visit individual college websites or reach out to graduate programs in individual colleges for information about their awards.
  • Add <noreply@jotform.com> to your Safe Senders list in Outlook. This will prevent travel-related communication from going to your Junk Email folder.
  • Carefully read ALL instructions before applying.
  • Note that most up-to-date information is only available on this GSG webpage. GSG is not responsible for any misinformation elsewhere.

General Guidelines

Instructions on applying for this award is divided into two major parts: Before Travel and After Travel. Review both parts completely in order to make a successful submission.

Award Amounts

Students are eligible to apply for the following maximum amounts of award in one fiscal year (July 1st to June 30th). You can either apply for the whole amount once or divide amongst multiple conferences. The higher amount is maximum for an FY, no matter how many or what type of conferences you attend. The start date of conference determines which FY that conference will be considered for.

Note the following maximum eligible award amounts:

  • $600 for presenters.
  • $300 for non-presenters.

Important Note

All awards given will be upto the maximum allowable award amounts. Final award amounts will by decided by GSG and individual colleges for their respective portions, which will depend on availabilty of funds amongst other factors.

Application Approvers

You will need two approvers to sign off on your travel award application before GSG can process it. These two approvers are:

  1. Your Research Advisor or Department Head (You can find contact information about your Department at Graduate College Contacts webpage).
  2. Your GSA President or Treasurer (You can find contact information about your GSA officers on our webpage: GSG Member groups).

Review eligibility and ineligibility criteria for this award below.

To be eligible to apply for this award, you

  • Must be a graduate student matriculated within the University of Cincinnati (UC).
  • Must have earned 12 credit hours before the start of conference.
  • Must be a graduate student in good standing, meaning you must be enrolled at least for 1 credit hour during the academic year.
  • Must not be graduated for more than two weeks before the start of the conference.
  • Must be a registered member of GSG and your affiliated GSA on GetInvolvedUC (campuslink.uc.edu).
  • Presenters: Must be presenting original research either via a paper/poster/art presentation, or a keynote/talk. If multiple authors are attending the conference to present the same work, only one author (higher in author order) will be considered as presenter for this award. All other others will be considered non-presenters. 
  • Non-Presenters: Must be attending a purely research-related academic conference where others present their original research.

You are ineligible to apply for this award if

  • You are enrolled in a professional degree program, i.e., Doctor of Medicine (MD), Juris Doctor (JD), and Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD).
  • Your conference travel is supported by departmental and/or an advisor’s external grants (including but not limited to federal, state and local government or industry grants awarded externally to UC), or if you are traveling to a conference as an employee of such grants.
  • You are attending summer schools, career workshops/panels, networking workshop, auditions, career fairs, job interviews, or any non-research related conferences. No exceptions.

Before Travel

Complete a Travel Authorization (TA) Form and submit it to program director Megan Carroll (carrolm2@ucmail.uc.edu) at least one week before traveling. 

  • If you have already completed a TA form through your program, submit this signed form. 
  • The form must be signed by your research advisor or a designated program representative. GSG no longer signs this form. 
  • For international travel, forward this signed TA form immediately to UC International (global@uc.edu) or Ashley Chang (changa5@ucmail.uc.edu). You are required a complete a form to register your international travel with UC and buy a subsidized insurance. Once completed, they will notify the sponsoring departments of your compliance.

A conference travel award application will be denied if the completed and signed TA Form was not submitted Megan Carroll (carrolm2@ucmail.uc.edu) at least one week before traveling. Submission of a TA Form does not guarantee funding. Upon your return, follow the instructions in the "After Travel" section below to apply for award funds. 

After Travel

After you have traveled and have all documents with you (including the GSG approved pre-travel TA form), it is time to apply for the GSG Conference Travel Award. The application includes clear and explicit instructions where needed. If you are still not sure about something, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the GSG Treasurer (gsg-treasurer@mail.uc.edu).

IMPORTANT: UC requires any travel-related reimbursement applications be submitted within 14 days of last day of travel. Apply for the award accordingly, any applications not following this UC deadline will be denied by default.

Required Documents

GSG Conference Travel Award application requires following documents in the order (1-7) prescribed below. These details are also available on the application. Failure to produce all documents will result in unnecessary delay of award, if not desk-rejection.

You will need to upload a single PDF (under 5 MB) containing following documents. All documents must be clearly legible. Pay special attention to required highlights/annotations. After highlighting something, make sure underlying text is legible.

Name the PDF using this convention: FirstName_LastName_SubmissionDate. For instance, Jane_Bearcat_12-25-2023. Documents must be in the below order:

  • All receipts must be in English, no exceptions. UC does not reimburse expenses presented in foreign languages. 
  • If expense is in a foreign currency, make sure abbreviation/symbol (e.g., USD/$) is mentioned.
  • Highlight your name (if available), date of transaction, amount, last four digits of credit/debit card used (if applicable).
  • This could be a monthly statement from your card company, or individual charge proofs that can be downloaded. When using the whole statement, highlight the expense(s) in question, and please redact everything else. You do not need to wait until month-end to obtain a statement to upload, most credit cards will allow you to download single transactions from their website.
  • This document should clearly mention your name, date of transaction, amount, last four digits of credit/debit card that appeared in the receipt(s).
  • If you have a shared expense with a colleague, include a Peer-to-peer (P2P) transfer proof, such as Zelle/Venmo/Paypal transfer.
  • Term bills can be found on your Catalyst account.
  • If conference was during summer and you aren't required to register during summer term, upload the prior spring term bill. 
  • Unofficial records can be generated on your Catalyst account.
  • Highlight the number of credits earned to-date.
  • Such an email is usually sent by organizers after you are research gets picked for presentation.
  • If you are a non-presenter, include a confirmation/welcome email from organizers.
  • Include the title page and page(s) from the program brochure with your name on it. Highlight your name and presentation title. DO NOT include the whole program brochure.
  • As an option, you can include certificate of attendance from the conference, or a picture of yourselves presenting.
  • You should have this document approved pre-travel from GSG (Megan Carroll). If you do not have a pre-travel approved TA form from GSG, your award application will be denied by default.

Ineligible Expenses

GSG, being a student organization, cannot reimburse following expenses:

  1. Food/Per Diem when you are traveling on conferences
  2. Room service and any other add-ons for lodging
  3. Any add-ons or insurance fees for car rentals
  4. Mileage reimbursement (only gas receipts allowed)
  5. Airline 'Baggage', 'Seat Selection', and any other additional fees
  6. Any Insurance fees such as health, travel, etc.
  7. Membership Fees/Dues of the organizers' professional bodies (please refer to GSG Conference Membership Award for this if applicable)

After Submission

You will receive a confirmation email (with a submission PDF) within 30 minutes after you submit your form. Along with this, both of your approvers will also receive emails with unique approval links. Please ask them to review and approve your application as soon as they can.

It would help if they add <noreply@jotform.com> to Safe Senders list as well. If not, they might find approval emails in their Junk Email folder. GSG will automatically send your approvers reminder emails every 3 days to help you out.

Lottery System

Until a better pre-approval system can be put in place, GSG will rely on a blind and impartial lottery system to pick random awardees at the end of each month. Applications will be collected throughout the month and applicants will be notified first week of upcoming month. For instance, for all applications made in the month of November, awardwees will be announced first week of December.

Reimbursement Time

After you receive both signatures and if all required documents are in order, it will typically take 5 weeks for the award funds to show up in your account or mail.

Terms And Conditions

When you submit your application, you agree to below terms and conditions by signing your full legal name.

  1. No awards are guaranteed. Final approval depends on budgetary restrictions, and the decision solely lies with GSG and UC administration.
  2. Falsifying data on application will lead to denial of application.
  3. Failure to produce pre-travel GSG approved TA form will lead to denial of application.
  4. Failure to submit travel application within 14 days of last day of travel will lead to denial of application.