About Research, Training and Network budget

Curious to hear if anyone else has had this experience?

At Cambridge, as we (non-EU/ non-UK) are employed under Tier-2 work visa, we are eligible to pay the staff-fee which amounts to about 1/3rd of the regular non-UK/EU fee I guess: http://www.graduate.study.cam.ac.uk/finance/fees/staff-fees

We fully claim this staff-fee from the Marie Curie grant (from the so-called, '2nd pot'- research/ training grant).  

In University of Edinburgh, I am registered as a part-time student since I am employed by the University of Edinburgh under the Marie Curie Scholarship terms. Therefore, I am entitled to pay the part-time tuition fees (roughly about £10000 each year). However, this fee is paid by the School of Engineering as it was agreed upon with my supervisor during the hiring process. So the tuition fee does not get paid from the training/research cost.

In my ITN, at another UK institution (University of Surrey), the tuition fee is paid from the training budget.

I was also a non-EU person doing a MC at at British University (2009-2012). My experience may too long ago to be of any use though. I was employed under a Tier 2 work visa, but the University of Oxford still charged me both tuition and college fees. At least the fees were caped to the same level as UK/EU citizens. I was very lucky because my department ended up covering my tuition fees and my laboratory covered the college fees. At least that is how I think it ended up. It was a bit of a long and conveluted process to sort out. I would at least check to see if the tuition could be reduced to UK/EU citizen levels since you are on a EU funded project. 

Regards,

Carrie

Thank you all for your comments. I am also employed under a Tier-2 visa but registered as a full time PhD student. That is why I have to pay full time student fee. I will speak to the HR of my dept and will try to figure out things. 

I was wondering if any one knows about the budget flexibility. Is there any possibility to get more funds (as the expenses in my case are genuine). 

Regards

Mayank

I would suggest to check whether you can change your status to a part time student because in many universities you cannot be a full time student while also being a full time employee in the same university.

Regards,

Arnold

I don't think that the EC agency might allot additional funds for your case (under Marie Curie grant). As far as I know, it is a fixed-term contract of 36 months duration with a fixed grant amount alloted to the ESRs. Perhaps, your boss might have other research grants which might be utilized to support your additional needs. You need to negotiate this. As you mention that you are considered like a full-time student, it might be worthwhile applying to all possible student scholarships you might be eligible for. All the best!

I don't think that the EC agency might allot additional funds for your case (under Marie Curie grant). As far as I know, it is a fixed-term contract of 36 months duration with a fixed grant amount alloted to the ESRs. Perhaps, your boss might have other research grants which might be utilized to support your additional needs. You need to negotiate this. As you mention that you are considered like a full-time student, it might be worthwhile applying to all possible student scholarships you might be eligible for. All the best!

Hi there,

I raised this question with a guy from the UKRO -  the National Contact Point for the UK but based in Brussels. His advice was very similar to the feedback in the comments above. It is technically allowable for the supervisor to pay such fees from the Research, Training & Networking  budget in this way. Nevertheless most supervisors/host institutions find better solutions for the problem. It is a really bad advertisement for the University of Bristol. 

Warm regards, 

Brian

Dear Mayank

In my case I am registered as a staff PhD (mandatory for MSCA early stage fellowships in ITNs )and it is the policy at Newcastle University that staff PhD can only be registered as part time students. Thus we have to pay fees similar to EU part time PhD students. I am not sure which account this goes from (research and training account or others), however we haven't come accross this problem till now. I did think this was the case with non EU MC fellows in UK (similar to Arnold and Sundarajan).

Regarding additional external funds (especially research grants or fellowships), if you personally apply for it you might have to buy out hours as there is a declaration of exclusivity which you have to sign stating that you have worked only on the stipulated ITN project.

Hope your HR department can help with and your situation gets resolved soon.

Best Regards

Arathi

Dear Arathi

It is not strictly correct that every MSCA early stage researcher in an ITN needs to be enrolled in a PhD programme. This is only the case in EIDs and EJDs but not in ETNs (see page 26 in the following document: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/other/guides_for_applicants/h2020-guide-appl-msca-itn_en.pdf ).

They must not hold a PhD when being recruited and must be within the first 4 years full-time equivaltent of their research career. This means they can even be awarded a PhD after a short time of being employed as an ESR (in case of ETNs) since the requirements must be met at the time of recruitment (see same document page 17).

Best regards

Marco

I recently finished the programme and currently finalizing my PhD. I was both staff and full-time phd student in the University of Bristol. The tuition fees I paid were the same as every EU PhD student has to pay.

I suggest you should contact both the PI and project manager. I doubt the project reviewer will be happy to know that most of the training budget went towards tuition fees instead of actual training or conferences. When is the projects mid term review? The reviewer will probably have a talk with you guys on a private basis.

Well, unfortunately I got to know this just after our project mid-term review :(

 I will definitely raise this concern with our Project manager.