GAABESU Travel Grant Program Guidelines
1.0 OVERVIEW
GAABESU, the Global Alumni Association of Bengal Engineering College/Bengal Engineering College Deemed University/Bengal Engineering & Science University have long been active in raising funds to aid fellow alumni, students, faculty members for multiple purposes including helping students to attend and/or present their research to the national and international technical conferences and seminars. Further, after formation of IIEST, GAABESU will look forward more towards these type of student benefit related activities.
Purpose of this document is to formalize and streamline the process of mobilizing resources for such grants and disbursement of the grants. This mobilization of funds will be done by using the existing funds (already donated specifically for similar purpose) and further raising fund from the alumni. This document describes the scope and process to be followed in helping IIEST students in those cases and is to be used as administrative guidelines. It also contains the rules and guidelines that need to be followed to manage this effort efficiently and in a transparent manner.
The main motivation of the scheme primarily is to promote “academic excellence with a focus on quality research” in the institute
2.0 SCOPE
This program is solely intended for the present students of IIEST, Shibpore. Partial assistance will be provided to attend national/international events of repute. These would include seminars, conferences, innovative design competitions, research paper presentation and receiving of awards of international repute (only if the work was done at IIEST, Shibpur or the awardee is the principal investigator of the work), international students’ summit etc, subject to certification by IIEST respective department head and acceptance by GAABESU.
Paid or unpaid internships, workshops etc, will not be under the scope of the scheme.
This program will not discriminate any person based on location, age, sex, race and political inclination and/or affiliation. All cases will be treated equally for the overall process and the award will depend on the available financial resources of GAABESU. Selection will be done on a first-come-first-serve basis.
GAABESU will constitute a committee consisting of at least four (4) GAABESU members (in addition to GAABESU President/Secretary, who are ex-officio members) to finalize the award of the grant. In case of particular donor wishing to have his/her/their representative in the selection committee, same also shall be accommodated. This committee can seek help from anybody or may use internally available resources for evaluating any application. This committee shall inform the Donors & GAABESU Members about the details of the fund utilization.
GAABESU shall consolidate all the available funds for this purpose and also seek further donations from Alumni, so as to be able to start with a dedicated fund of at least Rs. Fifteen lakhs (Rs.15,00,000/-). It will be endeavored to increase the fund upto Rs.1Cr within next three years. The funds will be kept as fixed deposits in a nationalized bank account. GAABESU shall use upto maximum of 90% of the yearly interest accrued from the funds. Principal amount should not be used at any point of time.
2.1 INCLUSIONS:
The grant shall be partial for the total expense. The applying student shall show that the fund received from other sources is not sufficient for his/her travel, lodging, and daily expenses to attend the conference.
The support available from GAABESU shall not exceed 50% of the total eligible Travel and Conference cost. The maximum amount of a grant shall not exceed:
- INR 50,000.00 (or its USD equivalent) for a trip abroad, outside of South Asia for students, or
- INR 10,000.00 for a trip within South Asia.
The pledged amount to an applicant can be reduced later on if the applicant receives support from other sources, subsequent to his/her application.
Only one grant per person shall be awarded in any 24-month period. Anyone receiving/received any other award from GAABESU for the same academic year is not eligible for travel grant.
The assistance will only be reimbursed after the applicant submits statement of expenditure after expiry of the event. GAABESU may review this requirement in exceptional cases for needy students.
2.2 EXCLUSIONS:
The fund will not support
· Paid or unpaid internship, workshops, etc
· any local event organized by students or research scholars,
· expenses other than travel, boarding & lodging
· attendance at any type of event other than those mentioned above.
.
3.0 REQUIREMENTS
Formal application is needed to participate in the program. All eligible persons need to inform their case to GAABESU Secretary or GAABESU office in person and in writing. All application must be made on the prescribed form with approval from the Department Head and PICSA. Only applications with IIEST administrative approval will be considered by GAABESU. Each person will need to fill in the form attached that will require the following information:
a) Name of the person
b) Contact Information (Postal Address, Phone Number, e-mail id)
c) A brief description of the event with date, location and activity in the event
d) Bank Information including Bank Name, Address, Account Name and Account Number, Bank Transfer Information
e) An estimate of fund required and fund available to the applicant from all sources including his/her own
f) Proof of seeking funding outside of GAABESU. Include all applications and results for seeking funding from State and Central Government agencies including IIEST.
g) Proof of acceptance of paper, invitation to attend, award of prize, etc along with comments of reviewers (if any) and certification of IIEST respective Department Head.
3.1 The student shall be required to present the same paper at a seminar in his/her department after the conference so that the other students benefit from his/her experience. GAABESU will help the student organize the departmental seminar. The student must give the conference proceedings to the IIEST library. This way, it will be verified that the student indeed attended the conference and IIEST library will build some proceedings collections.
3.2 A Grant shall be awarded only to the presenter of an accepted paper or for the acceptance of an award at such a conference or event. In the case of a co-authored paper, a grant shall be awarded either to one principal author/ presenter or the grant can be shared amongst other co-authors/presenters, in case of a joint application.
3.3 Completed applications with BESU administrative approval and supporting documentation shall be submitted preferably three (3) months prior to the start of the event, but the entire process should be completed by two months before two (2) months.
3.4 If approved, payment of the GAABESU grant shall be made directly to the Applicant’s designated bank account. A completed expense report and all related receipts, in originals, are to be submitted to GAABESU office, after the completion of the Conference and Travel.
4.0 PROCESS
a) Applicant submits a request with all supporting documents to GAABESU Secretary or GAABESU office.
b) GAABESU office forwards all the information to the appropriate GAABESU Sub-committee via e-mail.
c) GAABESU Sub-committee reviews the application and takes a decision for the case.
d) If the case is not accepted, GAABESU shall intimate the applicant at the earliest.
f) Whenever the grant is awarded, GAABESU will advise the applicant as to what the applicant needs to do after his/her return from the event (e.g. travel report highlighting the event and the benefits of the trip, event photos, receipts of expenses, etc.).
g) GAABESU office will collect all the information and share those with GAABESU EC.
Please contact GAABESU office at mailto:gaabesu@gmail.com for questions/comments.
or simply download and fill out the form below to apply:
