Faculty Travel Grants FAQs

No, travel to conferences for non-presenter roles e.g. conference or session chair, panelist, convener, moderator, discussant, etc., are not permitted. Academic Senate travel grants are intended to support travel for the purpose of presenting and discussion novel research results or creative work. Exceptions are rare and decided by the co-chairs of the Committee on Faculty Grants.

No, travel costs charged by UCLA Travel Center must be charged to your department and a TOE (Transfer of Expense) must be prepared by your department and sent to the Academic Senate for approval.

If you are an Academic Senate member (Professor, Acting Professor, Lecturer with Security of Employment (LSOE), Lecturer PSOE, Emeritus Professor) you are eligible to apply for grants. Visiting professors, post doctorate scholars and other non-Senate titles are not eligible to apply for UCSB Academic Senate grants.

Faculty are eligible for only one conference travel grant per fiscal year, whether it is a domestic grant or an overseas grant. Every other years you may apply for an overseas award, and it counts as the one award per fiscal year. The fiscal year is July 1 to June 30.

No, we do not make exceptions to the grant deadlines. The 21-day requirement in the current policy was implemented because conferences are scheduled well in advance of the 21-day requirement, and the three week lead is the minimum needed by our office to manage the funds and the program. We must be able to make financial commitments to faculty who apply in advance, and not risk running out of funds due to exceptions.

Organized conferences or creative venues (for artistic presentations that are the research equivalent in the arts) that are, at least, broadly publicized, draw attendees from a national or international group of researchers or artists in the field, and are significant in terms of scholarly exposure for the UC. The grants are not intended for guest lectures or similar events that primarily benefit the faculty and students of another university.

Examples of conferences that qualify for conference grants are those held by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Association for Computing Machinery, American Educational Research Association, American Sociological Association, and the International Conference on Theatre, Literature and Arts.

Examples of the types of creative events that are supported are initial presentations of creative works at international film festivals, performances by dance faculty, and initial exhibitions of a collection of works by a faculty artist at a major art venue.

Examples are guest lectures, funding agency meetings, workshops for the students and faculty of another institution, and visiting fellowships.

The two trips will occur in different fiscal years so you can apply for both.

No, this program will not fund travel for purposes of delivering a guest lecture, nor does it cover the cost of travel for a summer teaching position at another institution.

Yes, you can apply anytime as long as you apply at least 21 days in advance of travel. We encourage you to apply as early as possible, even if you might need to cancel the award later.

No. It is typical for extramurally funded projects to entail project meetings, and these are not the type of meetings that the Senate grants are intended to support. The grant program is intended to support organized conferences that are, at least, broadly publicized and open to national or international attendees. Examples of conferences that qualify for conference grants are those held by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Association for Computing Machinery, American Educational Research Association, American Sociological Association, and the International Conference on Theatre, Literature and Arts. Faculty need to fund extramural project meetings with appropriate project grant funding or other sources.

Send an email to travel.grants@senate.ucsb.edu and ask to have the award cancelled in order to apply for a different grant. We will change the award amount to $0 in our system. You can then log on to mySenate and apply for a grant for the different conference.

If your dean’s office requires it then you must obtain approval in the form of your dean’s signature (or his or her delegate) on the foreign travel worksheet. The Academic Senate does not sign this form – the signed form is a programmatic approval from your dean for the trip.

This is not an acceptable practice and your travel voucher will not be approved nor processed by the Academic Senate when it is received. You will then be responsible for finding your own source for funding the travel expenses.

Your conference schedule showing your research presentation will provide the needed documentation for us to approve payment on your travel voucher. While the travel receipts are also necessary, the need to submit a copy of the conference schedule is a requirement of the grant program. To expedite the processing of the awards with minimal delay, we make the travel awards based on the information provided in the grant application and contingent upon receipt of the conference schedule, rather than review the conference schedule in advance of making a decision on the grant. We have not allowed payment on any grant for conference presentation travel without the conference schedule or equivalent, and have made no exceptions.

If the event on the application is unclear, we will ask for additional information in order to make a decision. It is better that we ask before an award is made rather than looking over the conference schedule after the event and realizing that it does not qualify for funding. Since travel costs are charged to our office account, our office takes the lead in ensuring that all travel that we pay for will be approved by auditors, and we look at transaction from an auditor’s perspective.