Expenses, Budgets & Additional Student Costs

This information is relevant to students in the Data Science and Robotics & Autonomous Systems CDT programmes.

Funds Request Form

Allowable Costs

As grant-funded Centres for Doctoral Training, the programme costs must comply with the guidelines of our funding body, EPSRC.  Below is a list of the allowable costs which can be reimbursed by the grants. To be reimbursed, you MUST complete a Funds Request Form (see top of page) with details of the purchase or travel request, PRIOR to making any purchase or payment commitments.  [If you are in receipt of an industry/other research grant funding, please liaise with your Supervisor for reimbursement procedures.

Note:

Do not go ahead with the purchase until you've received approval, even for items that have been pre-approved in your PhD Proposal budgets. Failure to do so may result in the payment or reimbursement not being covered by the CDT.

We normally reimburse:

  • Conference Registration and Travel including travel insurance, if presenting your work (see Conference Travel or important restrictions and requirements). We can also reimburse poster printing if presenting a poster at the conference (see Poster Printing for information related to printing procedures). Note that PhD students are expected to present their work when attending conferences, and approval will only be given in well-justified special cases for conference trips with no presentations

  • Research visits associated with a project such as visits to second supervisors
  • Equipment* and research costs associated with your budget within your PhD proposal
  • Specific items of computing equipment* (except personal laptops, desktops, usage of CDT servers and the ECDF cluster; as always, approval for any equipment must be sought PRIOR to purchase)
  • Publications of your CDT-supported work
  • Printing Costs

 

* These items can not be claimed on an expense form.  Please fill in a Funds Request Form for all requests for funding or contact your CDT Administrator for clarification.

Contact CDT Administrator

Process for purchasing equipment

  • Student seeks permission from supervisor for equipment
  • Order approved by supervisor
  • Students submits Funds Request Form (FRF)
  • CDT team approves FRF
  • IS purchase request made by student, based on evidence of approval of item
  • If IS can source, CDT Manager, Neil Heatley, to be asked by IS to provide costing codes
  • If IS explicitly indicate that they cannot source, only then will student be asked to order and reclaim via expense claim form.

Claiming for Expenses

Only original, itemised receipts will be accepted for payment, as required by the University's Finance policy. For example, we cannot reimburse you using only a credit card receipt showing the total amount paid.

If claiming for reimbursement of expenses for items listed above, please follow the procedure as outlined on the IGS webpages at https://web.inf.ed.ac.uk/infweb/admin/finance/expenses

All claims should be submitted in Pounds Sterling, along with the exchange rate you have used (for foreign-currency transactions).  For instance, you can look up the exchange rate for the date of the transaction using OANDA or XE.com or you can provide a copy of your bank statement showing the exchange rate, with personal information redacted. You should also include the local/original itemised receipt.

If a request for expenditure (Funds request form) is not received before the purchase is made, along with a justification as to why this is important for your project and how it fits in with your budget (or, if it is in addition to your previous budget, with an explanation of why this additional expense is necessary), we cannot guarantee that you will be reimbursed for the cost.

Note:

The student is responsible for payment of all costs incurred unless prior approval has been obtained from his/her CDT via the Funds Request Form.

See the Conference Travel page for policies for reimbursement of conferences and other travel expenses: Conference travel & research visits

See the School's policy for guidance on expenses: Informatics staff and student expenses guidance

Please contact your CDT Administrator if you have any queries related to reimbursement of expenses.

Contact CDT Administrator

Additional Costs Not Payable

Please note the CDTs are unable to pay for matriculation or continuation fees charged by the University after the 1+3 years of the programmes. If you go beyond the 3 years of your PhD, you will receive (and will be required to personally pay) the fees for each semester in which you are registered beyond the end date of your programme.

Additional costs and fees which students should be prepared to pay from their stipends include:

 

School's Expenses Policy