What is NBSW travel grant?
The NBSW network supports PhD students for NBSW summer schools and courses. NBSW supports annually 25 PhD students to the summer school and 8 PhD students (at minimum) to every research course with a travel grant. Travel grant is 500 Euros (PhD students from Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark) or 350 Euros (PhD students from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia). This is according to the NordForsk rules. Travel grant is intended to be used for travelling and accommodation. If your traveling expenses are higher than your grant (350 € or 500 €), then you need to cover the expenses yourself.

Can I apply for travel grant?
You can apply NBSW travel grant if you are qualified to apply for research course or summer school AND you are not studying in the country which is organising the course or the summer school you are applying for.

You can apply for NBSW research course or summer school if you are a PhD student in social work or your PhD thesis focuses on social work issues AND you are studying in university or institution participating in NBSW-network. You can find NBSW - network universities and institutions on the page Basic information. 

We are not able to give travel grants for students who come from the country which is organising the course or summer school. For example, if the summer school is organised in Finland, PhD students from Finland or international student who study in Finland are not qualified for the travel grant.

Participation and travel grant
If you receive the travel grant from NBSW you should participate to the whole research course or summer school. This means that you will have to write required abstract or a research paper and participate to workshops and lectures every day during course or summer school.

How and when do I get the travel grant money?
There are three possibilities to pay your travel and accommodation expenses:
1. Pay for your travelling and accommodation yourself and then claim it back after the course/summer school from University of Lapland (which is coordinating unit)
2. Your University department pays your travel expenses and sends the bill to the coordinating unit. Ask this possibility from your own University.
3. If neither of the first two options are available, you can ask NBSW to pay your travel grant in advance.

In every option you need to save the original receipts and sent them to University of Lapland after the summer school or research course. Read more information about all these alternatives on below. Find travelling bill and bill instruction below on this page.

Option 1: I pay my travel expenses and claim them back from NBSW after the course/summer school
Pay for your travelling and accommodation yourself and then claim it back from the University of Lapland, which is the coordinating unit for the network. You can find the bill for travelling and also instructions for filling in the travelling bill from the end of this page. Please read them carefully.

The Bill for travelling expenses should be sent to the coordinating unit after the course. Please notice that original receipts need to be sent with the invoice. You should send original receipts and traveling bill by land mail.

Please note that it can take 1-2 months to get your travel grant money after sending the travel bill to the coordinating unit. In many cases you can influence the handling time by filling all needed information to travel bill. Unfortunately we can not pay the travel grant unless we have all needed information to pay it. It is VERY IMPORTANT to fill in all information for traveling bill.

Option 2: My University pays for my travel expenses and sends the bill to the NBSW
If your university department agrees to pay the expenses for you, it is also possible. In that case, your department pays for your expenses (travelling, accommodation) and then after the course sends the bill to the University of Lapland (to secretary Eveliina Ojaniemi, eveliina.ojaniemi[@]ulapland.fi; postal address: Eveliina Ojaniemi, Sosnet, University of Lapland, Department of Social Work, P.O. Box 122, FI-96101, ROVANIEMI, FINLAND) with all the receipts (flight tickets and bills etc.) and with your name as a reference.

University of Lapland will pay for your department your travel grant (max 500 / 350 euros) based on the actual costs of your trip. It's important that all the expenses are showing on the bill that your department sends to us. In this case your department doesn't have to fill in the travelling bill form.

Option 3: Travel grant in advance
If you don’t have money to pay for your travel and accommodation expenses AND your University does not agree to pay for your travel expenses, then there is a possibility that NBSW can pay the travel grant in advance. This possibility can be used only as a last option to pay for your traveling. In this case please contact Coordinator Teija Horsma.

You need to ask for this option very soon after you have been accepted to the course or summer school. It can take one month to get the money to your account. Travel grant will be charged back if you don´t participate to the course.

How many travel grants I can apply?
There is no limit. You can apply for as many courses or travel grants as you like.