Terms and conditions
On this page, we've provided more information about the Fellowship and how it works.
Help
All questions and suggestions should be sent to the Fellows Management email address.
Terminology
We will use the word event to refer to all conferences, meetings, workshops and other events.
The word expenses will be used to describe expenses incurred for both travel, subsistence and expenses related to the running of and attending events.
The word Fellow or Fellows will refer to a single Fellow, or all Fellows, in the 2015 Fellowship intake, unless otherwise qualified.
The responsibilities of a Fellow
Fellows have the following areas of responsibility:
Mandatory
Preparing blog posts on attended events where attendance has been supported by the Institute’s funds.
Promoting the Software Sustainability Institute where appropriate.
Attending a Fellows inaugural meeting in early 2015.
Attending the annual Software Sustainability Institute's Collaborations Workshop March 25-26 2015 in Oxford (with an optional attendance on 27 March for a Hackday).
Attempting to deliver on the plan you stated in your fellowship application or making the Institute aware of substantive changes to your plans.
Providing feedback and ideas to help the Institute and the Fellowship programme.
Optional
You are encouraged to run an interdisciplinary workshop in your area of work; with a focus on facilitating new relationships or exploring cross-over areas which are under represented.
Running a Software Carpentry workshop and/or Data Carpentry workshop
Suggest other uses of the award to further your aims and the Institutes aims; these could be focused on your institution or domain or both.
More senior Fellows in terms of career stage may be asked to mentor more junior Fellows in terms of career stage; and work towards making this a fruitful and cordial relationship.
Fellows are invited and encouraged to prepare blog posts on relevant events attended even where the Institute has not supported the Fellows attendance.
Encourage other Fellows (2015 or earlier) to attend events you organise if relevant.
Work on on activities to address specific topics with other Fellows.
Take part in one or more of the review of applications, short listing meeting, face to face selection meeting, or online selection meeting related to the Institute’s Fellows 2016 programme; this is inline with the aim of the Institute to have existing Fellows help choose the new cohort; ‘Fellows choosing Fellows’.
Funding
A Fellowship has £3000 of funding. This funding is to aid the Fellow in carrying out their responsibilities as detailed above.
Preparing blog posts on events
In exchange for the Software Sustainability Institute paying their expenses, Fellows will prepare a blog post on events they are using their Fellowship funding for; this includes the conferences they attend, workshops they run etc.
We recommend reading the Writing for the Software Sustainability Institute guidelines while preparing your blog post.
Information about when these blog posts are required is covered in the section 'How to apply for, and claim, expenses'. Please note we more than welcome blog posts about relevant events you have organised, attended and opinion pieces even when the work was not supported by the Institute's resources.
Promotion of the Software Sustainability Institute
Fellows should promote the Software Sustainability Institute where appropriate. For example, we expect Fellows to discuss our work during conversations with interested delegates at conferences and events.
We also require our Fellows to include a slide about the Software Sustainability Institute in their presentation (if we have contributed towards the event), and, where possible, to leave publicity materials (typically A5 flyers and stickers) for distribution at the event.
Fellows should write a minimum of one blog post per year for the Software Sustainability Institute's blog over and above any event based blog posts.
We encourage Fellows to use Twitter and other social media in order to broadcast news about our work.
If Fellows are in receipt of their Institute T-Shirts we'd like Fellows to wear them at events we've paid for them to attend (and you're free to wear it at other events too).
Attend a Fellowship inaugural meeting in early-2015
Fellows will attend an inaugural Fellowship meeting in early-2015; this is likely to be sometime last week of January or the first week of February 2015; we will be sending a poll out mid December 2014 to check Fellows' availability. The meeting will give Fellows the opportunity to gain a more thorough introduction to the Institute and learn how they can contribute in a way that is mutually beneficial. It also affords an opportunity to network with others and gain feedback on their planned activities. It will last one day and expenses will be reimbursed by the Software Sustainability Institute and the expenses will not be deducted from the individual £3000 Fellows budget.
Attending the Software Sustainability Institute's Collaborations Workshop
Fellows will attend the Collaborations Workshop on the 25-26 March 2015 in Oxford and they are strongly encouraged to attend the associated Hackday on 27 March 2015, also in Oxford. Expenses will be reimbursed by the Software Sustainability Institute and will not be deducted from the individual £3000 Fellows budget.
Possibly run a Software Carpentry or Data Carpentry Workshop
A Fellow can elect to run a Software Carpentry event at their home institution or at a domain conference (where there is clear benefit to the UK research base). The Software Sustainability Institute will provide expertise and advice on running the event. Funding for the workshop will come from the Fellows £3000 funding.
Contract duration
In most circumstances, Fellows must submit applications for expenses over the period 1 January 2015 and 10 December 2015. The expenses must be incurred over the period 1 January 2015 to 31 March 2016. After this period of time Fellows can remain as Fellow but they no longer have access to dedicated funds. This is subject to some basic requirements: such keeping the Institute up to date with your latest e-mail address, some level of engagement (e.g. writing a blog post) for us and not bringing the Institute into disrepute by its association with you. On an annual basis (in early April) post Fellowship an announcement will be made on the all-fellows@software.ac.uk e-mail list specifying whether there is a communal pot of money for Fellows who are past their inauguration year to bid into; previously this has been able to offer £6000 a year.
What events meet the criteria for funding?
We will only pay for a Fellow to attend/organise an event that is likely to provide information about a research discipline that uses software, or an event that's likely to generate interest in software and research. We are interested in uncovering information about:
The software being used by researchers to improve their research, and the ways in which that software is being used
Researchers who are developing software for other researchers to use
Groups who are funding software development or helping researchers with software
Other matters pertaining to software in research (but we encourage dialogue with the Fellows Management team prior to an event request)
Organising events such as Software Carpentry, Fellow led workshops or other events will be agreed by dialogue; there must be a clear benefit to the UK research base and be in alignment with the Institute's aims and objectives.
We expect Fellows to try and achieve the plans they laid out in their application, however with justification and communication with the Management team we can take a flexible approach to this.
How to apply for, and claim, expenses
The application process
Any Fellow can apply to have their allowable expenses paid by entering the required information on the Fellows event request page. The process is as follows:
1. At least one month before the event begins, the Fellow should use the event request page to submit information about how the expenses will be incurred. This must include:
○ the name of the event
○ the dates over which the event takes place
○ a description of why the Fellow’s participation in the event will generate benefit to the Software Sustainability Institute and/or the Fellow’s research community
○ an estimate of the expenses that will be incurred
2. The application is reviewed by the Software Sustainability Institute
3. The Fellow is informed by email (normally within two weeks) whether the application is successful (the Fellow may be contacted for further information before a decision is made)
4. The Fellow either pays for their expenses and collects receipts for all expenses incurred or can choose to have his / her travel booked and paid for in advance by the Institute (for the advance booking or claim of large expenses, see below )
5. Within one month of the end date of the conference, they submit their blog post on the event to and posts an expenses form and all receipts to the address below
6. The Software Sustainability Institute reimburses the Fellow for all relevant expenses (or the balance of the expenses, if some have been paid for in advance).
Limitations over what can be claimed, time limits and other restrictions are discussed in the Limitations section below.
Sending expenses and receipts
Expenses will be paid from the University of Edinburgh, hence Fellows should follow the University of Edinburgh's expenses policy (as taken from the reimbursement of expenses section on the staff expenses website. Note you need not access to the actual University of Edinburgh staff website but this information is provided for provenance).
Expenses can be:
- Claimed entirely after the event.
- Claimed (partially) before the event, when applicable: e.g. if Fellows have to book flights or accommodation in advance of the event, these can be claimed at the time of purchase, rather than waiting until after the event; in this case Fellows may submit a subsequent claim after the event, relating to expenses incurred whilst at the event.
- Booked and paid in advance by the Institute; Fellows may choose to get their travel and accommodation arranged by the Institute by following the instructions in the Advance booking section below.
- Invoiced to the Institute: e.g. in the case where a Fellow is the organiser of an event and needs to pay a supplier, such as catering, venue hire, etc. In this case please contact the Fellows Management team for further instructions.
Note, Fellows may use a combination of the routes above, e.g. booking their flights / trains and accommodation and claiming before the event and then claiming the balance after; or having their flights / trains and accommodation booked by the Institute and claiming the balance after the event.
Whichever method chosen, Fellows are kindly requested not to submit more than 2 / 3 claims for a particular event to reduce administrative overhead.
All expenses forms must be completed as fully as possible and must be supported by receipt(s).
Completed expenses forms and receipts should be scanned and sent to the Fellows Management email address. Here is a sample of properly filled claim (please note, some of the items in the claim are fake and only for example).
Please bear in mind that expenses will normally take an average of 4 weeks to be paid from the time they are received. This is due to the time it takes to process external expenses claims by the University of Edinburgh Accounts office.
Advance booking
Fellows will need to fill in and submit a Traveller Profile to the Fellows Management team before their first advance booking.
If an advance booking is needed, please email your requirements to the Fellows Management email address.
Advance booking requests should not be for less than a total of £200 and should include all advance elements of your event (e.g. flights, accommodation etc.) on the same request.
The Institute cannot book Ryanair flights in advance.
Advance bookings are possible only for things or services which can be booked on the basis of the information provided in the Fellows Traveller Profile: e.g. flights, trains, accommodation. It’s preferable that conference registrations are handled by the Fellows themselves as these may involve strictly individual choices / preferences.
Limitations
Expenses will not be reimbursed if the limitations described on this page are not met. It is the responsibility of the Fellow to meet the limitations. The Software Sustainability Institute is not responsible for reminding Fellows of limitations and cannot be held liable if any of the limitations are not met.
We will reimburse reasonable expenses, as described in the reimbursement of expenses section on the staff expenses website a copy of the document not requiring login is available. This means choosing the most economical and practical option when traveling, such as choosing economy class for flights, standard class for trains and accommodation considered safe.
The blog post on the event must be completed to a degree considered adequate and publishable by the Software Sustainability Institute. We suggest you read around five to ten of the recent blog posts at www.software.ac.uk/blog to understand the style, tone and type required. The Writing for the Software Sustainability Institute guide is a valuable reference and following it will reduce the amount of iterations between the Institute and the Fellow required to get your post published. To understand how we will process you blog post please read our editing tips.
The Software Sustainability Institute is not liable for any expenses incurred by the Fellow before permission for incurring expenses has been approved.
Expenses (or the balance of these) will not be paid until the Fellow submits their blog post in a publishable state on the event. When expenses have been paid in advance of the event, if a Fellows fails to submit a blog post without a suitable justification, he / she will be asked to reimburse the expenses already incurred by the Institute.
Unless suitable justification is provided, expenses will not be paid if they are over 20% of the estimate of the expenses submitted during the travel request process.
Unless suitable justification is provided, event requests must be submitted at least one month before the event takes place.
Expenses will only be reimbursed if the expenses form and receipts are received within a period of one calendar month from the end date of the event.
Termination
The Software Sustainability Institute reserves the right to cancel our contract with a Fellow at any time if the Software Sustainability Institute deems that a Fellow has not met the terms and conditions described on this page or has brought the Institute into disrepute.
Fellows who are inactive (no approved event requests in 6 months) and non-communicative (not responding to email or other contact requests within a month) risk the cancellation of their contract.
Any Fellow who has their agreement terminated will not be eligible to move onto the continuing Fellowship programme and references to them on the Fellowship pages will be removed.