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Graduate Student Research Support

The Department of Economics provides some financial support for graduate students for the acquisition of data, to present papers at conferences, and to attend special educational programs, such as summer schools and workshops.

 

Data Acquisition

In order to request funding, a student should present to the DGS a proposal and a budget. The proposal should describe briefly the data, the intended use of it, and whether the data can be made available to other Economics Department doctoral students. The request should be supported by a letter from the student’s adviser. Requests for aid may be made to the DGS by e-mail. If the request is for more than $1,000, the normal practice is to ask the student to contribute $300. Receipts should be presented to the Graduate Registrar for reimbursement. The Department will pay a total of up to $2500 per student while enrolled in the doctoral program.

Data use agreements can be required whether the data is free or at a cost. If a data use agreement is required in order to obtain and access data, under no circumstances should you or your faculty advisor sign documents. Yale's Office of Sponsored Projects will need to review and sign such documents. The required steps to do this are included at the following website: https://your.yale.edu/research-support/office-sponsored-projects/contracts/data-use-agreements-duas.

The website includes a Data Use Agreement (DUA) request preparation worksheet which will assist you in gathering information you will need to complete the DUA Request Form. The second link on the OSP website is the Request a Data Use Agreement online form. Questions should be directed to the Economics Graduate and Business offices prior to moving forward with any further action on data access or purchase.

 

Conferences

In order to obtain funding for travel and accommodation, a student must present a paper or a poster session or be a discussant at the conference. Conferences often provide some financial aid to speakers, and applicants for Department support should investigate this possibility before applying to the Department for aid. When presenting receipts for reimbursement, the student must provide the Graduate Registrar with a copy of the conference program showing the student’s name and role at the conference. The Department will pay one half the expenses for travel and accommodations up to a maximum of $600.00 per conference. The Department will pay for a maximum of one conference per student per academic year (Sept. 1 - Aug. 31). All receipts should be in the students’ name and clearly show the last 4 digits of the credit card used for payment. Please alert the Graduate Office of your conference plans prior to making your travel arrangements.

NOTE: Do not make accommodation arrangements through Airbnb without contacting the graduate office prior to doing so for instructions on how to proceed. Not doing so will disqualify reimbursement. Graduate students must go through the Yale platform and use a Yale email address to quality.

 

Educational Programs

In order to obtain funding for a summer school, workshop, or similar program, a student should present to the DGS a budget and a proposal explaining the material covered by the program and how it will contribute to the student’s research. The student should also arrange for a letter of support from her or his adviser and should investigate the possibility of partial financial support from the program organizers. When presenting receipts for reimbursement, the student must provide the Graduate Registrar with a document that verifies participation in the program. Requests for aid may be made to the DGS by e-mail. If the request is for more than $1,000, the normal practice is to ask the student to contribute $300. The Department will pay up to $2000 for education program per student while enrolled in the doctoral program.

The Department will pay for either one conference or one educational program per student per academic year (Sept. 1 - Aug. 31).

 

Travel to work with advisors

If a student needs to travel to work with an advisor at another university the Department will pay for travel and accommodations up to $600 per year per student. Before traveling a student should present by email to the DGS an explanation of the need for the travel and a proposed budget. The request should be accompanied by a letter of support from the advisor.

 

Computers and Services

The Department will not pay for the purchase of computers, computer hardware, computer software or computing services.

 

Other sources of research support

The Graduate Student Assembly provides Conference Travel Fellowships (http://gsa.yale.edu/conference-travel-fellowship), and the MacMillan Center provides fellowships and grants for research (http://macmillan.yale.edu/graduate-professional-student-grants).