Mohammad Al-Aqeel Fellowship Program for Graduate Students Conference Attendance

KFUPM Program for Graduate Student Conference Attendance

Last Update on: 27 March 2024

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1. Purpose
2. Scope
3. Definitions and Acronyms
4. Objectives
5. Eligibility Criteria
6. Application Process
7. Program Benefits and Payments
8. Trip Report
9. Affiliation and Acknowledgments
10. Implementation, Compliance, and Reporting
11. Compliance and Performance Indicators
12. Document Amendment Information

1. PURPOSE

The purpose of these guidelines is to support the administration of the Conference Attendance Program for graduate students.  

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2. SCOPE

1. These guidelines apply to all monies issued to support conference attendance.
2. These guidelines apply to all graduate students at KFUPM.

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3. DEFINITIONS AND ACRONYMS 

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4. OBJECTIVES

1. The Deanship of Research (DR), in coordination with the Deanship of Graduate Studies, will manage the Graduate Student Conference Program sponsored by KFUPM Fund Office.
2. The program encourages graduate students to interact and exchange ideas with internationally renowned scholars and researchers, promote KFUPM’s research, and support the cohort of innovative ideas.  

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5. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA 

5.1 Applicant Eligibility 

1. Applicants must be enrolled (full-time) in a graduate (PhD and MS) program and be a registered student during the term in which the conference takes place.
2. Applicant must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 in the semester in which he is applying for the conference. For PhD Student, he/she has successfully passed the comprehensive exam.
3. Students must be presenting a paper at the conference for which funds are requested. In the event of dual authorship of a paper accepted for presentation, only the presenting author may receive an award.
4.  The Conference paper acceptance should be based on full paper submission. Accepted paper can be in the form of abstract/extended abstract/full paper.
5. A student can participate in up to two (2) conferences/events/competitions covered under this program during his study in a program at KFUPM.
6. For the non-paper-based track, the program can cover attending scientific conferences/events for both undergraduate/graduate students with no research paper acceptance requirement (i.e. non-paper-based track), especially if such scientific gathering is of high importance in the domain of the student. Applications need to be endorsed first by the Center Director/Chairman

5.2 Conference Eligibility 

1. The program supports virtual attendance at flagship conferences:
   • ranked as A* or A provided by departments and approved by the DR, and listed on the DR website; and indexed or having a presence in Scopus and Web of Science.  
2. The program also supports attendance at non-flagship conferences:
   • proposed by applicants through their respective department heads;
   • evaluated, ranked and approved as class (B) by DR
3. Attendance of a student to conferences held in his own country of origin is not encouraged unless the conference is flagship (A*) and/or there is a strong justification on its quality.

5.3 Conference Attendance Restricted Period

A student is NOT allowed to attend a conference during final exams if he/she is registered for courses.

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6. APPLICATION PROCESS

6.1 Application Procedure

1. A filled application form with supporting documents endorsed and signed by the Thesis Advisor and the Chairman of academic department with the following attachments:
   • Copy of the accepted paper to be presented.
   • Proof of acceptance of the paper (abstract/extended abstract/full paper).
   • A brief statement on the relevance of the conference/exhibition to the student research must be attached to the application.
2. The completed application form and required documents must be submitted at least (30) thirty “working” days prior to the conference dates in order to have enough time for the travel arrangements.
3. For the non-paper-based-track, applications need to be endorsed first by the Chairman, then thoroughly reviewed by the DR and VPRI office for approval.

6.2. Approval Procedure

1. The DR shall manage the approval process that starts with application, then screening at the Conference Office, and final approval by Vice President for Research & Innovation (VPRI).
2. The CSO shall inform the applicants of DR’s decision.
3. The DR will issue conference support letter (based on the approval) including the exact amount and the round destination for the ticket.
4. The KFUPM Fund Office issues payment to graduate student account and an order for round ticket (economy class). 






5. For the non-paper-based-track (Events/Conferences): Application by Student > (1) Recommendation (Center Director/Chairman) > (2) Issuing support letter by DR with VPRI approval > (3) KFUPM Fund Office pays total support amount.

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7. PROGRAM BENEFITS AND PAYMENTS

The applicant will receive total support amount (award), not exceeding SR 10,000, to attend conference which includes actual round-trip air ticket fare, the conference registration fee, the actual hotel room rent, visa fee (including insurance), single exit-reentry fee and the per diem:

1. The KFUPM Fund Office is NOT responsible for issuing any travel orders or air tickets. It is the responsibility of graduate student (applicant) to make flight reservations.
2. It is the responsibility of the graduate student (applicant) to use reduced registration rates offered by the professional societies after receiving the award, and should not be receiving any funding for the conference attendance from other sources.
3. It is the responsibility of the graduate student (applicant) to make the hotel bookings.
4. The following per diem¹ rates (Incidental Expenses) will be applied for in-kingdom and out-of-kingdom travel. The rate is inclusive to meals and local transportation (taxis, rent-a-car, metro etc.,)
   

   Applicant	in-kingdom	out of kingdom
   PhD or MS Student	100	300

   ¹ Per-Diem will be based on the University approved per-diem policy. The number of per diem days would be that of the actual conference days, not exceeding the conference duration of 7 days.

5. The financial benefits above apply to attending scientific conferences/events for both undergraduate/graduate students under the non-paper-based track.

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8. TRIP REPORT

1. With the completion of the conference, the student should submit to the Conference Office the following:
   • Conference trip report, detailing the program, themes, organization of the conference etc.,
   • Air ticket and flight booking with the invoice;
   • Hotel Booking with the invoice.
2. Upon submitting conference attendance and expenses report (invoices and proof of payments) to the DR, Deanship will issue a letter to the KFUPM Fund Office about unsettled amount to be returned to KFUPM Fund (if any) or amount to be transferred to student account.
3. In case the student did not attend the conference, he/she should immediately contact CSO in the DR. If any expenses/tickets are already disbursed, the amount will be required to be paid back to University. 

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9. AFFILIATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

1. The appropriate affiliation of the Department, the University in the full-length paper is a pre-requisite for considering any conference attendance application.
2. The University should be exclusively acknowledged in full (with the project number in case of paper resulting from a funded project). The following is an example of acknowledgment: “The author(s) would like to acknowledge the support provided by the Deanship of Research at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM) under Research Grant xxxxx)

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10. IMPLEMENTATION, COMPLIANCE, AND REPORTING

1. DR shall implement these guidelines.
2. Non-compliance with any provision in these guidelines shall be reported to DR.

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11. COMPLIANCE AND PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

In monitoring and reviewing the implementation of these guidelines, the following compliance and performance indicators shall be used:

1. Number of conference applications received, approved and rejected each year;
2. Number of graduate student applying for, and receiving support for conference attendance;
3. Level of funding support for conference attendance each year.

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12. DOCUMENT AMENDEMTN INFORMATION

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