Home > Gazette > July 2007

July 1, 2007

Changes to CIBER Grant Guidelines

The UW-Madison Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) has recently changed some aspects of the two grant programs available to School of Business faculty, academic staff and PhD students. These changes were adopted largely in response to new requirements by the U.S. Department of Education, the federal agency that funds and overseas CIBER. Information on CIBER's Global Research/Curriculum Development and Applied Funds programs is available at http://www.bus.wisc.edu/ciber/facphd/grants.asp.

Among the most significant revisions are:

• Adoption of a quarterly grants submission policy for the Applied Funds grants. This change was adopted primarily because the U.S. Department of Education now requires CIBER to obtain their approval for all grantees traveling internationally with CIBER funds. Given the administrative burden of this new requirement, CIBER will submit travel approval requests on a quarterly basis rather than monthly. The next application deadline for the Applied Funds program is Sept. 4, 2007.
• The revised Applied Funds grant application form requires applicants who wish to use CIBER money to travel to an international conference to submit additional information. First, as part of the U.S. Department of Education's new travel approval process, CIBER is required to inform the Department about additional activities related to CIBER's goals that the grantee will undertake while abroad. Second, CIBER requires more information than in the past about the nature of the conference and, if applicable, content of the research the applicant plans to present. The fact that a conference is held overseas does not mean it is necessarily related to CIBER's goals.
• In order to receive reimbursement for their expenses, the revised guidelines require Applied Funds grantees to submit a one-page report describing their trip or other funded activity.
• Finally, the revised guidelines include a section on the Fly America Act. This Act is the source of the U.S. Department of Education requirement that CIBER grantees use U.S. airlines when they travel between the U.S. and an overseas destination.

Please keep these changes in mind as you develop your application for a CIBER grant. If you have any questions, contact Suzanne Dove, CIBER outreach director, at 265-4938 or sdove@bus.wisc.edu.