Funding (RTSGs), Papers, Conferences, & Export Controls

It is not enough for researchers to do significant research; we also must go out into our research communities to communicate it. The Department provides a small amount of money (called a Research Training Support Grant; RTSG) for each PGR which is currently £1000 per annum (to be spent at any time over the programme length minus the submission pending period and any interruptions or extensions), so, for example, a 3 year PGR will accrue £3000 total, for travel and training. We typically do not provide this funding to any PGR who has separate means (typically via sponsorship) to attend conferences or buy equipment; for example, EPSRC Knowledge Transfer Partnership Accounts and the like. Further we have a Grammerly subscription for 2022/2023 and your email should automatically have been added (or removed if you have left).

The policy of the Department for spending this money is as follows:

£3000 Over the 3 Years

The money follows the PGR. The money is placed in the group RTSG account of the main supervisor and can only be used for the PGR activity. The money is to be used to best enhance the research training of the research PGR. However, the PGR should not feel that they can spend anyway they like, it is up to the supervisor and PGR to jointly decide the best use of the money. If the there is a disagreement then Oliver Rhodes (HoPGR) 1 or Dr Bijan Parsia (DHoPGR) 2 are consulted for the final say.

Computer Equipment

Every PGR should be provided with a new machine of the standard Department spec or higher

After your first semester, all PGRs will move from PGR Home (which has machines) to your home labs. Prior to this move, PGRs should discuss with their supervisors what machine is required for their proposed research and order new machines. It is important that students take responsibility for discussing their compute requirements as early as possible with their supervisor and for ordering their machine.

This should have a specification which is equivalent to or exceeds IT Services PGR Standard Catalogue 4. There is no expectation that this be upgraded in subsequent years, unless the supervisor deems that necessary. Of course, the supervisor may judge that a particular PGR’s project requires a much higher spec desktop, or other equipment, and may spend more of the budget on that PGR. We want to avoid PGRs being given three year old machines which happen to be lying around the lab.

In this case, each student is automatically allocated funding for a machine in addition to their RTSG. Our advice is in most case to choose the a good workstation (Lenovo ThinkStation P520c - at the time of writing) option (unless a laptop is needed) from the IT Services PGR Extended Catalogue 3. Supervisors will need to make the case in the order that your PGR has non-standard requirements (which I would expect all CS PGRs to have - as standard requirements are considered to be low compute administration tasks). Supervisors should make it clear on their order form that you are a Postgraduate Researcher and your machine will be used for research purposes. More information on PGR IT Purchasing 5 is available.

If the PGR is going to use a laptop, the you should fill out the peripherals form that a monitor and keyboard and dock are needed to conform to Health and Safety and to protect the PGR from upper limb disorders, repetitive strain injuries, and so forth.

Machine purchases can be discussed with IT services but this may well increase the time an order takes; and the simplest answer for a request arising from a discussion of non-standard equipment is ‘no’. We would suggest conforming to the catalogues if at all possible.

In cases where a higher specification of machine is required we suggest the workstation is ordered and then the upgrades are performed in house by using funding from the PGRs RTSG to purchase the additional parts (outside of the IT Services loop).

Danger

All machines must be purchased through IT Services. If a fully-spec’ed non-standard specification machine is purchased via IT Services then the PGR RTSG will be liable for the entire cost of the machine not just the difference between the Workstation and the non-standard machine.

Home Working

Find out more at Home Working.

Publications

UKRI-funded authors should familiarise themselves with the details of the UKRI publication policy and what they need to do to in order to comply. Advice for UKRI-funded authors and full details of the policy are available via the Library website. You should acknowledge the grant from which you are paid on any publications, including those grants which are from your own sponsor (who will likely have their own requirement) but also from the Department or the EPSRC RCUK via the Departmental awards allocation allocation. If you are a CDT student you would also acknowledge that too. The UKRI OA policy applies to all journal articles and conference proceedings that acknowledge any UKRI grant funding, whether that’s partial funding, a studentship or DTP. As long as one of the funding councils are acknowledged the paper will be in scope of the policy. All in-scope papers should be able to comply via one of the routes described on our webpages. If Route 1 or Route 3 are the most appropriate routes to compliance, we’ll be able to pay for OA. We also have a number of agreements in place with publishers to make papers OA without paying a fee, too.

Note

‘The authors would like to thank the EPSRC Manchester Centre for Doctoral Training in Computer Science (EP/I028099/1) for supporting this work’ or ‘The authors would like to thank the Department of Computer Science Kilburn Scholarship for supporting this work’ or ‘This work was supported, in-part, by The University of Manchester Presidents Award.’

UoM academics wishing to publish with Elsevier and compliance with the new UKRI OA policy – we are advising that it will be possible for Manchester Corresponding Authors publishing in subscription-based Elsevier journals to publish papers immediately Gold OA via the new Transformative Agreement, ensuring straightforward compliance with UKRI’s new OA policy. Authors publishing in fully Open Access Elsevier titles will also be able to request use of the UKRI block grant to have the Article Processing Charge (APC) paid.

Tip

Institutional Publications Policy. This new policy (April 2023) allows authors to retain the right to make a copy of their Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) immediately Open Access through our institutional repository (Pure) under a CC BY license (Creative Commons Attribution License) irrespective of embargo periods stipulated by publishers. This will not only mean that authors’ articles are immediately available for all to access, thus extending the potential reach and impact of the research, but it will also make it easier for authors to adhere to the Open Access policies set out by funders. Authors don’t need to take any additional action to benefit from the revised policy. Manchester authors can simply continue to submit articles via the Open Access Gateway or publish articles Gold OA. The majority of articles will still be made Open Access either through one of our various Transformative Agreements or through the payment of Gold OA Article Processing Charges for eligible papers, however our updated Publications Policy will mean that those papers which are not eligible for paid Open Access can now be made Open Access via the Green OA route immediately and will not be subject to publisher embargoes. Authors should contact the Library if a publisher requests transfer of exclusive rights during the publication process.

You can see all such agreements (of which there are many) on the libraries website.

Export Controls

Export Controls aim to limit proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and serve international obligations, focuses on “Controlled items” and “End –users” (ie who is receiving it), can be physical goods or intangible such as information/data. Within Universities, research data may seem benign, but it may be listed as controlled for having a potential dual-use, within Academia, we also need to be aware of who receives them - due diligence checks for your collaborators, funders and visitors are in place, the PI/teaching academic has personal liability if exporting controlled goods/data outside the UK borders as do you as a PGR. Discuss these with your supervisory team and look at the additional information of the EC website in the meantime, if you have any questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact ecc@manchester.ac.uk.

Conference, Workshop, Summer School Travel

Every PGR should have the opportunity to attend at least one conference or workshop.

It is an important part of research training that PGRs get the opportunity to participate in conferences and workshops and network with other researchers in their fields. It is preferred that some of these experiences are outside the UK. Although it is reasonable to wait until the PGR has a poster or oral presentation accepted, this is not a requirement. The supervisor and PGR might together decide to send the PGR to a workshop or summer Department in an early stage in the PGR’s research. The fact that a particular PGR has not managed to get a conference or workshop paper accepted by the end of the doctorate should not preclude the opportunity to attend one. You’ll need a Travel risk assessment https://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/compliance-and-risk/travel/flowchart/. And complete export control approval (if required) https://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/compliance-and-risk/export-controls/. Additional details can be found on the Faculty website.