Dean of Graduate Studies > Scholarships and Awards > Travel and Research Awards

Travel and Research Awards

The Graduate International Research Travel Award provides support to master's and PhD students who must travel in order to undertake research for their degree requirements. The award is valued to a maximum of $6,250 and is tenable only in the term in which the travel is occuring.

Interested applicants should read the Terms of Reference to ensure they are eligible.

Eligible students apply using the Graduate (International) Research Travel Award form and submit all required documentation to their department of enrollment.

Departments are required to submit the top two ranked applications to the Dean of Graduate Studies in early February. The Senate Graduate Awards Adjudication Committee (SGAAC) makes the final decision on award amounts.

Terms of Reference

This scholarship is awarded to graduate students who must travel to undertake research required for their program of study.

  1. The Graduate [International] Research Travel Award is valued up to a maximum of $6,250 and is tenable in the Summer, Fall or Spring term. The duration of the research trip must be a minimum of one month to a maximum of four consecutive months. The award value will be prorated depending on the duration of the research trip and its location.
  2. To be eligible to hold this award, a student must be registered as a full-time, regular (not “on-leave” or “part-time”) student in good standing in a master’s or doctoral program in the term in which the award is held.
  3. Master’s students must be intending to complete a project or thesis that will be deposited in the SFU Library/Summit and hold the award within two years of beginning their degree program.
    Doctoral students must hold the award within three years of beginning their degree program.
    These times may be extended for students who have taken approved ‘on-leave’ semesters for medical or maternity reasons.
  4. The following categories of activity are typical of those that will be supported:
    1. research where travel to informants is necessary (e.g. ethnographic research);
    2. research that requires travel to natural phenomena (e.g. species, ecosystems, landforms);
    3. research where travel to cultural phenomena (e.g. archives, artifacts) is necessary;
    4. research that requires the student to use facilities not available in Western Canada or the Northwestern USA (e.g. scientific equipment; reference collections).
  5. The following categories of activities will not be supported:
    1. instructional activity (courses, field schools, training programs);
    2. research to be conducted in Northern Canada, the Northwest Territories or the Yukon. Funding for research projects in the North is available through the federally funded Northern Studies Training Program (NSTP) and through NSERC.
    3. conferences, seminars, working groups, etc.;
    4. travel to paid employment (co-op terms, internships, research assistantships, etc.).
  6. Students are eligible to hold no more than one Graduate [International] Research Travel Award during their degree program.
  7. Recipients of a Graduate Research Travel Award may accept other scholarship support from external sources and/or from awards administered by SFU with the exception of the Michael Smith Foreign Travel Supplement. Students cannot hold the MSFSS and GIRTA during the same travel period.
  8. Application is made on the Application for a Graduate Research Travel Award form and must be accompanied by:
    1. a current, unofficial SFU transcript AND a copy of the transcript from the institution from which the applicant obtained their most recent degree;
    2. a list of scholarly contributions (publications, conference papers, etc.) and graduate awards received;
    3. a statement of the research to be conducted, including description of research, relevance, contribution to the student’s development as a researcher, and justification for travel (maximum two pages);
    4. a letter of support from the senior supervisor, indicating the relevance of travel to the research and confirming that they do not hold a research grant that could support the travel;
    5. completion of the one-page budget summary form, including dates of travel, travel costs, accommodation, and living expenses. (It is not necessary for these costs to equal or exceed the value of the award.)
  9. The completed application and all supporting documentation must be received by the Graduate Program Chair in the applicant’s department of enrollment by the deadline specified by the department.
  10. Awards are made by the Senate Graduate Awards Adjudication Committee after a University-wide competition in which the departmental recommendations are considered.
    Awards will be adjudicated on the following criteria:
    1. academic ability, based on transcripts and scholarly contributions;
    2. the research proposal;
    3. justification for travel and contribution of travel to the development of the student as a researcher.

Revised: January 2012 (RD)

Process

  1. Eligible students must apply on the application form provided.
  2. Students must submit the application form, budget summary form and all the supporting documentation required directly to their program by the internal deadline established by their Graduate Program Chair. Please contact your Graduate Secretary/Program for further information.
  3. Each graduate program will forward to the Dean of Graduate Studies a ranked list of applicants. 
  4. Applications will be adjudicated by graduate programs and the Senate Graduate Awards Adjudication Committee (SGAAC) based on the following award criteria:
    (i) academic ability, based on transcripts and scholarly contributions;  
    (ii) the research proposal;  
    (iii)justification for travel, and contribution of travel to the development of the student as a researcher. 

Eligibility criteria  
Eligibility criteria for this award are outlined in the Terms of Reference. Please remember to sign and date Part
A of application. Please note that incomplete applications will be rejected.

Timing of Award and Accountability
This scholarship is intended to support students while working on their degree requirements. Therefore, recipients of the award do not need to account for travel expenses.

However, recipients must conform to the
following requirements: 

  • Awards are available for travel that begins in either the summer, fall or spring semester. 
  • If planned research travel is delayed, a recipient may postpone the award only as far as the spring semester of the year following the application. 
  • Students will be required to submit a short report of their activities to the Dean of Graduate Studies Office after the travel has been completed. Failure to do so will result in a reduction of awards made to the student’s program in future. 
  • Awards will be disbursed through the SFU Student Account (SIMS) approximately two weeks before the travel date. Any indebtedness to the University will be subtracted from the award value.

At a Glance

Graduate [International] Research Travel Award

Amount: varies to max $6,250
Tenure: 1 semester

See also scholarships for all SFU graduate students.

Reports from GIRTA recipients

Search the Graduate Studies website

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Defences and Events

  • Hagen Schwerin, PhD Thesis Defence, Economics
    11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
    June 20, 2013
    Senior Supervisor: Steeve Mongrain Abstract: This thesis considers implications of the commitment of resources to specific dirty and clean production technologies. Chapter one examines underutilizing capital to preserve the environment. I consider an economy in which building new capital units may create additions to pollution of the same kind that production of a general factor creates. The second chapter analyzes the distribution of investment in dirty versus clean technologies when building new capital units creates such emissions. The third aspect, in Chapter three, is the planning and dispatch of dirty and clean production capacity given the fluctuation of clean technology inputs, in particular of renewable energy for electricity production. Chapter 1: If the utilization of dirty technology capital can be chosen then emissions can be saved. If underutilization postpones capital use, replacing investment, then emissions from investment can be prevented. This is of particular interest in regard to climate change, because currently existing fossil-fuel using machines have been built without regard to the climate, and investment in clean energy technology creates emissions. I examine the Pareto optimal utilization of dirty and clean technology capital and their irreversible investment in controlling an environmental stock. Dirty technology production is below capacity if government policy internalizes the externality after such policy is sufficiently long delayed. Capital can be optimally underutilized if the pollution is below its long-term level. Optimal early utilization diminishes the capital stock until investment becomes worthwhile followed by full utilization. The emissions tax that implements an optimum is smaller in those early periods than the tax that induces a welfare maximum under the premise that producers fully utilize capital. Clean technology capital may be underutilized to save emissions from investment or because creating new units is more costly than forwarding existing units. Chapter 2: The paper studies the role of emissions from investment for the distribution of investment among dirty and clean technologies. Dirty technology may not be used at a stationary point that is a Quasi-Clean Age because the cost of pollution reduction relative to consumption increase is smaller for the dirty technology, though clean technology may be relatively more expensive on all scales, and the societal effect of the first pollution unit may be small. In plausible cases there is a unique stationary point. If technologies imply a continuum of stationary points then the point with greatest clean capacity is optimal. If the discount factor is not too small then disregarding emissions from investment in dirty technology biases the stationary cost of polluting downward, because society is willing to pay more to preserve the environment if it has less polluting technology and accounting a greater portion of emissions in investment lowers the complete emission intensity. The paper establishes relationships between the investment in clean technology, the cost of polluting, and the shadow return or marginal rate of return. Chapter 3: This paper examines production using a dirty and reliable technology versus production using a clean and unreliable technology in a dynamic economy. Consumption can be efficiently equal across states because investment absorbs the fluctuation in clean technology productivity in days in which consumption is maximized. In the celebrated case dirty technology backs up production in states when productivity of clean technology is low, yet the underutilization of dirty technology capital when the clean technology’s productivity is high does not smooth consumption across all states in a long period in which capital is built. Clean output subsidies such as feed-in premiums, when rebating a general energy tax or a general tax on investment goods that produce energy, or that differentiate the surcharge in a fully-funded system between households, can implement a Pareto optimum.
  • Hagen Schwerin, PhD Thesis Defence, Economics
    11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
    June 20, 2013
    Senior Supervisor: Steeve Mongrain Abstract: This thesis considers implications of the commitment of resources to specific dirty and clean production technologies. Chapter one examines underutilizing capital to preserve the environment. I consider an economy in which building new capital units may create additions to pollution of the same kind that production of a general factor creates. The second chapter analyzes the distribution of investment in dirty versus clean technologies when building new capital units creates such emissions. The third aspect, in Chapter three, is the planning and dispatch of dirty and clean production capacity given the fluctuation of clean technology inputs, in particular of renewable energy for electricity production. Chapter 1: If the utilization of dirty technology capital can be chosen then emissions can be saved. If underutilization postpones capital use, replacing investment, then emissions from investment can be prevented. This is of particular interest in regard to climate change, because currently existing fossil-fuel using machines have been built without regard to the climate, and investment in clean energy technology creates emissions. I examine the Pareto optimal utilization of dirty and clean technology capital and their irreversible investment in controlling an environmental stock. Dirty technology production is below capacity if government policy internalizes the externality after such policy is sufficiently long delayed. Capital can be optimally underutilized if the pollution is below its long-term level. Optimal early utilization diminishes the capital stock until investment becomes worthwhile followed by full utilization. The emissions tax that implements an optimum is smaller in those early periods than the tax that induces a welfare maximum under the premise that producers fully utilize capital. Clean technology capital may be underutilized to save emissions from investment or because creating new units is more costly than forwarding existing units. Chapter 2: The paper studies the role of emissions from investment for the distribution of investment among dirty and clean technologies. Dirty technology may not be used at a stationary point that is a Quasi-Clean Age because the cost of pollution reduction relative to consumption increase is smaller for the dirty technology, though clean technology may be relatively more expensive on all scales, and the societal effect of the first pollution unit may be small. In plausible cases there is a unique stationary point. If technologies imply a continuum of stationary points then the point with greatest clean capacity is optimal. If the discount factor is not too small then disregarding emissions from investment in dirty technology biases the stationary cost of polluting downward, because society is willing to pay more to preserve the environment if it has less polluting technology and accounting a greater portion of emissions in investment lowers the complete emission intensity. The paper establishes relationships between the investment in clean technology, the cost of polluting, and the shadow return or marginal rate of return. Chapter 3: This paper examines production using a dirty and reliable technology versus production using a clean and unreliable technology in a dynamic economy. Consumption can be efficiently equal across states because investment absorbs the fluctuation in clean technology productivity in days in which consumption is maximized. In the celebrated case dirty technology backs up production in states when productivity of clean technology is low, yet the underutilization of dirty technology capital when the clean technology’s productivity is high does not smooth consumption across all states in a long period in which capital is built. Clean output subsidies such as feed-in premiums, when rebating a general energy tax or a general tax on investment goods that produce energy, or that differentiate the surcharge in a fully-funded system between households, can implement a Pareto optimum.
  • Mengt (Rose ) Yu - MSc Defence - Statistics & Actuarial Science
    11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
    June 24, 2013
    Burnaby Campus Meng (Rose) Yu Department of Statistics & Actuarial Science Room: ASB 10908 - IRMACS Statistics & Actuarial Science Defences

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