Higher Degree by Research Funds Policy

HDR students (PhD & MPhil) enrolled at the School of Social Science, who undertake a significant research component leading to a thesis, and who have successfully completed their Confirmation milestone are eligible to apply for research-support funding.

HDR students whose thesis research is funded by an industry partner or an industry-based research grant are not eligible to apply (e.g., students who receive scholarships from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, CSIRO).

Students who are part of a Category-1 grant held by a member of their advisory team by the Australian Research Council (ARC) or the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) are eligible to apply.

Data. Funding may be sought for the purchase of datasets relevant to the thesis research.

Fieldwork. Fieldwork expenses essential for the completion of the project can be funded. This may include travel, accommodation, subsistence and other expenses related to data collection and analysis (e.g., vouchers to compensate interviewees and phone cards and phone credit to contact participants).

Survey-related services. External services such as data entry, preparation of survey materials, and postage of survey questionnaires may be funded.

Training courses. Attendance at training courses on research methods or other topics directly related to the student’s thesis can be funded (e.g., research-method courses delivered by the Institute for Social Science Research). The student is responsible for ensuring that any training sought does not duplicate training provided by the UQ Graduate School through the Career Development Framework (CDF).

Software. Computer software that is essential to the completion of the thesis, but which is not already provided by UQ, may be funded. Where there are implications concerning licensing, funding towards this item will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Transcription services. Students may apply for funding to help cover the cost of transcription of audio recordings of interviews or similar. It is strongly recommended that students transcribe at least some of their raw data by themselves, so that they become familiar with the process and the data.

Editing services. Students may also apply for funding to help cover the cost of thesis editing to ensure that the submitted thesis is free from grammatical, typographical or other errors.

Presentation at scientific conferences. Attendance at national and international scientific conferences can be funded, provided that the student actively participates in the conference by presenting materials out of their thesis through an oral or poster presentation. The costs of conference fees, travel, accommodation and subsistence can all be covered. Please note that conference funding will only be approved where students can demonstrate that all essential fieldwork and data-collection activities have been completed and that there will be no additional need to allocate research funds to essential project components. Applications for conference-attendance funding early into the candidature (e.g., those issued prior to the Mid-Candidature milestone) are unlikely to be funded.

Equipment. Equipment items such as video or photographic cameras, tape recorders and microscopes will not be funded. Rather, where essential to the project, the School will aim to purchase such items and lend them to students for use during their data collection.

Computers. Students are expected to own their own computer or to use the computers allocated to them in the School's HDR Open Spaces. If laptop computers are required for parts of the fieldwork, these may be borrowed from the School for the duration of the fieldwork (subject to availability).

Books, journal subscriptions & membership fees for professional/academic bodies. Books deemed crucial to the pursuit of a student's thesis research may be purchased by the School through its annual Library Allocation Fund. Students should approach their advisory team for such purchases.

Open-access publication fees. The research-support funding issued by the School of Social Science cannot be used to cover the costs of publishing journal articles (or other thesis outputs) in an open-access journal or as ‘open access’ in a general journal.

Funding requests involving items that are not covered in this policy will be considered by the Director of Research Training on a case-by-case basis. This includes requests to hire Research Assistants ‘on the ground’, where students’ ability to travel to data-collection sites may have been affected by COVID-19 or where local informants are essential for gaining access to field sites.

Funding applications may be submitted by Confirmed HDR students using the HDR Bursary Application Form. The applications are screened for eligibility by the HDR HLO and circulated to the Director of Research Training for consideration.

Once the application has been approved by the Director of Research Training, the student will be notified by email by the HLO and asked to complete the paperwork for processing by the Finance Officer. All funding is paid directly to the student's nominated bank account.

It is the responsibility of the HDR student to ensure that the funds requested remain within the limits of their bursary allocation. An overpayment of bursary funds may result in a request for repayment.