Studentships

General Introduction

Studentship Basics

Studentship projects are created to handle the funding arrangements associated with a postgraduate student (usually a postgraduate research student). The format of the project code created depends on the source of funding for the studentship. Several potential funding sources exist and these are described in subsequent sections, along with some of the relevant rules and procedures.

The financial administration of studentships is part of the Finance Office Studentships (FOS) team and comes under the remit of the Studentship Accountant and is handled on a day to day basis by the Studentship Accounting Techicians.

A studentship will generally be made up of some or all of the following three elements: tuition fees, maintenance and a training support fee.

Tuition Fees
Full details about the tuition fees attracted by a particular student’s course can be found on the Student Finance Office (SFO) web pages.

Maintenance
Student maintenance is a “stipend” paid to cover the student’s living expenses, whilst undertaking a period of study. As such, the University can pay maintenance free of income tax deductions, provided the annual payments do not exceed a maximum level. This maximum is determined with reference to the stipends paid by the Wellcome Trust, which in turn is determined by the typical after-tax salary of a graduate research officer. Other useful information concerning the taxable status of students can be found at: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/students/.

Maintenance is paid quarterly in advance on 1st October, 1st January, 1st April and 1st July. The first payment is made by cheque, with subsequent payments being made by BACS (electronic transfer) once the student has supplied the SFO/FOS with the appropriate bank details (see http://www.bath.ac.uk/finance/student/assets/docs/bacs_info.pdf). If a student leaves or suspends mid-quarter, the pro-rated amount of maintenance from the day after the leaving date to the end of that quarter becomes repayable. Departmental staff should remind students of this when the decision is taken to leave or suspend and should give the Studentships team, via fos-pgstu@bath.ac.uk advanced warning that the debt may need to be pursued (although this will happen automatically, when the appropriate documentation has been submitted to the Student Records and Examinations Office, via the departmental Board of Studies).

Training Support Fee
A training support fee (TSF), or “bench fee”, is attached to the studentship to fund the miscellaneous costs associated with conducting a PhD. It is typically used to fund laboratory and other consumables, small items of equipment, travel to conferences and other fieldwork expenses.

Making Offers to Students

The Student Records & Examination Office is the central University contact point for making studentship offers to prospective postgraduates. Departments request a formal offer to be made by completing a funding pro-forma, detailing the amount and source of funding for the studentship. Based on this pro-forma, the Admissions Office then creates a student record on SAMIS and gives the Finance Office Studentship(FOS) access to a shared spreadsheet summary of the new postgraduates to whom offers have been made. From this summary, the FOS gathers the important information needed to create a studentship project, such as the start date, funding source, fee status, maintenance level, TSF level, etc.

In theory, therefore, the FOS is passive in its collection of new studentship information. In practice, however, the wide variety of studentships in existence and the complexity of the rules governing the use of some studentship funding (particularly from Research Councils), mean that it is often appropriate for departments to liaise separately with the Studentships Team in the FOS to describe the funding arrangements for a particular student. Certainly, if the department and/or supervisor believe that a studentship has unusual funding arrangements, then the Studentships Team would generally welcome correspondence clarifying the situation to ensure that the correct type of project is created, with the correct budget applied.

Budgets

Most of the studentship ranges now have “enforced” budgets applied to each project code. A budget is created for each category of expenditure on the project: fees (BR66), maintenance (BR67) and TSF (BR50) and these apply for the life of the project. For example, if a three year studentship has a TSF of £1,000 for each year, then the budget shown on the project for the category BR50 will be £3,000. No expenditure (purchase order, general ledger journal, etc.) can be posted to the project that will increase the expenditure in this category above the budget amount. However, as the budget is applied for the life of the studentship, the profile of expenditure is entirely flexible, so that the expenditure could be nil in years 1 and 2, still leaving the full three-year budget of £3,000 available in year 3.

VAT

Internally funded studentships and those funded by Research Councils, charities or individuals are not VAT reclaimable, therefore purchases made on these projects should be coded as “NTX”. The studentship projects on which the VAT on purchases can be reclaimed are those on which we have charged VAT when invoicing. These are principally CASE awards with non-charity collaborators and other non-charity externally funded studentships in the EG* range of projects.

The VAT code SR540 should be used when making purchases on these codes. Departments should bear in mind that, as with research grants, they will need to be aware on an project by project basis which studentships are VAT reclaimable and these will only ever be in the EG* and EH* ranges.

Closure

It is the responsibility of the department to ensure that studentship project codes are zeroed and closed as soon as possible after the student has submitted his/her thesis and/or has left the University. Debit balances (which should not arise if the budget has been set correctly) should be dealt with by transferring expenditure to an alternative code using account code 5918. Credit balances can be returned to the original funding source (if this is a condition of the funding), or can be used by transferring appropriate expenditure onto the project. In some circumstances, the supervisor may make a case for transferring a credit balance into his/her personal general fund (K account).

University Research Studentships Fund (URS Fund)

Background and Budgets

From October 2005 the URS Fund replaces the existing two stream system of internally funded departmental and University studentships. The URS Fund should only be used by departments to fund postgraduate research students, not taught postgraduates or undergraduates.

Each department’s URS Fund is given as an annual budget, made up of the department’s ongoing commitment to students moving into their second or third year and an allocation for the new intake of first year students. This new allocation is determined by a sub-group of the University Research Committee in the Autumn, in order that each department’s total URS Fund budget for the following year can be circulated by the Finance Office Studentship Team either just before or after Christmas. An essential pre-requisite of this process is that both the Finance Office and the departments have a complete and identical view of all ongoing studentship commitments, which means that departments have a responsibility to keep the Studentships Team informed of any amendments to their URS Fund commitments, regardless of how minor or how far into future years these may be.

An example of a situations where departments would need to be aware of (and make the Studentships Team aware of) a future commitment would be

• A student suspends, but is expected to return in six months. The department should liaise with the Studentships Team in order that the URS Fund commitment in respect of the student is moved forward by six months. It is likely that this will make some unspent budget available in the current year, but will extend the commitment end date by six months, possibly into a future academic year which previously bore no commitment to the student in question. If the student subsequently decides not to return, the department should again liaise with the Studentships Team in order that the commitment to this student is removed entirely.

Financial Administration
The financial operation of URS Fund studentships will differ from the historical approach to departmental and University studentships (and the approach that is still in place for other studentship ranges). Rather than the fees and maintenance for each student being charged to an individual student’s unique project code, these two elements will be debited through the year to a single accounting unit of the format BE-@@1xST. It will be clear to both the department and the Finance Office from the URS Fund commitments spreadsheet which students should receive fees and maintenance from this source and the accounting system will be reconcilable to this spreadsheet.

However, students will still have a unique project (with budget) created for their TSF. These project codes, of the format EA*, will be credited upfront with the debit appearing on BE-@@1xST. In this way, the accounting unit BE-@@1xST will form a complete picture of each department’s annual URS Fund expenditure.

Debit and credit balances on the TSF projects will be carried forward at the year end, whereas any under-spend against budget on BE-@@1xST will not be carried forward.

Research Council studentships

Background

The Government (Office of Science & Technology) funded Research Councils are the primary source of externally funded studentships within the University. The past four years have seen considerable changes in the funding of many Research Council studentships and the web-sites of the various Councils provide a useful information source:

• EPSRC - http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/PostgraduateTraining/default.htm
• BBSRC - http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding/training/Welcome.html
• ESRC - http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/opportunities/postgraduate/
• MRC - http://www.mrc.ac.uk/index/funding/funding-personal_awards/funding-studentship.htm
• NERC - http://www.nerc.ac.uk/funding/students/
• STFC - http://www.stfc.ac.uk/Funding+and+Grants/636.aspx
• AHRC - http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/about/programmesoverview/postgraduate_programme_overview.asp

Quota Studentships

These are the “old style” or “standard” form of Research Council studentship. Quota studentships are generally awarded by the Research Council to a department within the University, often on the basis of its portfolio of research grants with that particular Council. The department then appoints a suitable student.

The funding provided by the Research Council covers (most of) the tuition fees, a maintenance grant (paid directly to the student by the Research Council) and a TSF which currently varies depending on the Research Council. Departments should bear in mind that it is the responsibility of the academic supervisor to inform the Research Council if a student leaves or suspends, in order that the Research Council can cease making maintenance payments to the student. Failure to do this will mean that the University becomes liable to reimburse the Research Council for any overpayment of maintenance that could have been avoided had the Research Council been informed immediately of the student’s premature departure.

The TSF is credited to a studentship project of the format EF-@@1NNN. This project is created by the Studentships Team and has a budget applied to it representing the known TSF amount for year 1 plus an estimate of the TSF likely to be paid by the Research Council in years 2 and 3. In practice, the budget applied is the known year 1 TSF multiplied by three, with an undertaking that this budget will be revised if the Research Council provides an increased TSF in later years.

Doctoral Training Accounts (DTGs)

In an effort to give HEIs improved flexibility in the funding of its postgraduate studentships, the EPSRC introduced its Doctoral Training Accounts (DTA) from October 2001 with Doctoral training Grants (DTGs). A fundamental change from Quota studentships to the DTG system is that studentships are no longer funded on an individual student basis, but in the form of a block grant to the University, with allocations specified for each department. These allocations are derived from an algorithm based on the department’s portfolio of research grants with the EPSRC and are announced as an “indicative” amount in the Spring, with the confirmed allocations being announced in the Summer, prior to the DTG commencing in the October.

The studentship funding significance of the block grant approach is that departments have some flexibility about the level of funding provided for individual students. For example, a higher level of maintenance can be offered to attract a particularly good student, or differing levels of TSF can be provided to students, depending on the consumables, equipment and travel needs of the project being undertaken. However, the EPSRC does have funding eligibility conditions attached to its DTGs. For example, the annual funding for a student from the DTG must be at least 50% of the Research Councils’ national minimum stipend. Also, it is mandatory that DTG funded students receive the national minimum stipend in total from all sources. For full details of the conditions attached to the EPSRC DTGs and answers to FAQs, please see: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/PostgraduateTraining/DoctoralTrainingAccounts/default.htm

In practice, many departments fully fund (fees, maintenance and TSF) studentships from the DTG of the maintenance from an industrial sponsor.

Each DTG is granted by the EPSRC for a four year period, so the DTG starting 1st October 2001 expires 30th September 2005 and all expenditure being claimed from this DTG should be posted to the pot projects by this date. Any unspent balances after the end date of the DTG must be returned to the EPSRC. Traditionally, students have been supported for a three year period, with the four year grant duration providing flexibility over start dates and periods of suspension. However, from 2005 onwards, the EPSRC expects that DTG funded students should be supported for an average of 3.5 years, which is likely to mean some students being funded for three years and some for four years. This is to enable some students to pursue longer and more challenging PhD projects than may be possible under a three year funding regime. The decision to support a student for four years rather than three need not necessarily be taken at the start of the student’s project, but may be decided at the MPhil-PhD transition stage, for example.

Departments that receive a relatively small DTG allocation that may be insufficient to support a student for three (or four) years can delay the use of the funds for a year (or even two or three years) in order to pool the funds with amounts that are expected to be allocated in future DTGs. Of course, there is some risk attached to this and departments should feel confident that they will be awarded DTG allocations in future years. Alternatively, several departments with small allocations can agree to pool their allocations to create a cross-departmental studentship, or can agree to combine their allocations to fund a studentship based in one department on a rotating basis.

DTG studentship projects are created in the format EB-@@1nnn, with any associated top-up project (whether department or industrially funded) being of the format EG-@@1nnn, where “nnn” will be the same three digit number in each case. The Studentships Team maintains a spreadsheet projecting the studentship expenditure from each DTG, for each department and it is expected that departments will liaise with the Studentships Team on an ongoing basis to ensure the accuracy of this projection at all times.

BBSRC DTA
Other Research Councils have also begun to introduce DTAs as their method of funding postgraduate students in recent years. We currently have a BBSRC DTG in the Department of Biology & Biochemistry which has a life of five years, from 1st October 2004 to 30th September 2009. This is structured to fund two cohorts of students, with half starting in October 2004 and half in October 2005. As with the EPSRC DTA, a mix of three and four year studentships is expected by the BBSRC. For further details, please see: http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding/training/Welcome.html

CASE Awards
Co-operative Awards in Science and Engineering (CASE awards) are studentships that are primarily funded by a Research Council, with further financial and supervisory input from a collaborating organisation from the commercial or public sector. The CASE award itself is allocated by the Research Council to the collaborating body, which then chooses an HEI with which to collaborate. The HEI and collaborator then jointly recruit a suitable student.

Since October 2002, the EPSRC has funded its CASE awards in the form of a block grant containing an amount for each named student. As with the DTA funds, this amount can be used flexibly over the three (now three and a half) year period, within certain conditions stipulated by the EPSRC. The amount provided is set at a level that is adequate to fund fees, the Research Council minimum stipend and provide a modest TSF over the duration of the studentship. The student MUST receive the Research Council minimum stipend from the EPSRC funding.

The funding from the collaborator provides additional maintenance for the student and an additional amount as a TSF. Both these amounts may vary depending on the collaborator and the PhD project being undertaken, but each Research Council expects a minimum funding contribution from the collaborator and the supervisor should confirm that this is being met by reference to the particular Council’s website. The EPSRC expects a contribution from the collaborator of not less than one third of its own total funding. Whilst the collaborator’s funding can be used with some flexibility, the EPSRC expects that the student will receive an additional stipend payment per year.

Generally, CASE award projects are created in the EE-@@1nnn range, with the Research Council and the collaborator funding elements in the EG-@@1nnn range.

The Studentships Team is responsible for invoicing CASE collaborators (usually annually in advance) for their contribution to the project. To ensure this is performed smoothly and accurately, departments should liaise with the Studentships Team, ideally in advance of the student’s start date, to provide the following details:

1. Whether a contract is being drawn up between the University and the collaborator (this is not essential, although some collaborators will issue their own contracts and these must be ratified by the pre-contract team in the RDSO).
2. The financial contribution being made by the collaborator over the duration of the studentship (if this is not detailed in the contract) to ensure an accurate budget is applied to the project
3. An invoicing address and contact name and purchase order number if applicable (if not specified in the contract).

Departments and supervisors should be aware that, in order to reduce the University’s exposure to risk, the collaborator’s maintenance element will not be paid to the student until the Studentships Team has issued an invoice to the collaborator, based on a signed contract, purchase order, or written confirmation of the above details from the department.

Other Externally Funded studentships

Studentship funding may come from external sources, but may not necessarily be a CASE award, i.e. attached to a Research Council studentship. Depending on the elements being funded, such studentships may have an project created in the range EG-@@1nnn or EH-@@1nnn. Again, it is essential that the department supplies sponsor confirmation details to the Studentships Team, ideally well in advance of the student’s arrival, in order that delays to maintenance payments are not encountered.

Undergraduate Bursaries

From the academic year 2006/07, the University will be offering bursaries to eligible undergraduates. Details of these can be found on the undergraduate admissions website: http://www.bath.ac.uk/admissions/undergrad/money/bursaries/index.htm.

In addition, some philanthropic bursaries may be available. Departments that have donors willing to provide bursaries to support undergraduates should contact the Research and External Projects Accountant in the first instance, but must also contact the University’s Alumni Relations Office to make them aware of the situation: http://www.bath.ac.uk/alumni/.

An project code in the range ER-@@nnnn will be created to represent a philanthropic bursary and it is anticipated that payments will be made to undergraduates on 1st November, 1st March and 1st May.

Undergraduates can apply for other external bursaries funded by charities and commercial sponsors and the Student Services provides some information on these: http://www.bath.ac.uk/studentservices/index.html.

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