The following guidelines for expenses have been established. The aim is to make approval of expenditures, up to a limit, a matter of routine and to suggest what to do if funds beyond that limit are needed.

It is necessary to start by accepting as a fact of life that research in most areas of biology is simply too expensive to be supported by the department’s budget—outside support is essential if either graduate students or faculty are to do research in those areas. Moral: hope for the best and write good applications.

Expenses vary during a graduate student’s career, so the following guidelines have been established not per year, but per career—the total expenses of each student during his/her stay here. Each student admitted to the Biology Department Ph.D. program or to a Duke University Interdepartmental Ph.D. program and permanently affiliated with a faculty member with a primary appointment in Biology can expect to receive a total of $1,100 for research expenses from the department, no more than $550 of which can be spent before Prelims are taken. Costs for travel to meetings, any costs incurred in writing and copying dissertations, as well as publication costs and minimal reprint purchases are included in these “research expenses.” The costs of bringing a committee member from an outside institution to Duke for exams, meetings and defenses may also be charged to your GSR, as the department has no separate source of funds for this purpose. (The department’s seminar budget can sometimes be used to good effect here, if you invite your committee member to present a seminar at the time of one of these meetings. See the faculty seminar coordinator about this.) The department will provide matching funds up to a maximum of $500 to Ph.D. students who obtain outside funds toward their research expenses, for a department investment of up to $1600 per student. (The outside funds must be from a grant to the individual student, not from a faculty member’s research grant, scholarships or fellowships for coursework at other institutions, a training grant, or the Graduate School.) Each student terminating with a Master’s degree can expect to receive a total of $550 for research expenses plus an additional $250 in matching funds. No individual may receive more than $1100 plus $500 in matching funds during her/his entire time as a graduate student in the department. Students and their advisors will be given a statement of the student’s expenses at their request. Naturally, funds spent from all University sources administered by the department will count toward the guideline amounts.

Travel expenses for research purposes, including appropriate travel to Beaufort, may be charged to your GSR account (within the above limits). Any departmental contributions toward travel, including the 30% departmental contribution required by the Graduate School Conference Travel Fellowship, will be charged to your GSR account.

Exceptions to any of the above rules will require approval of your dissertation committee, the Director of Graduate Studies and the Administrative Manager