The Alumni Association offers grants to Master of Information, Master of Museum Studies and Bachelor of Information students to participate in research conferences.

Students are eligible if they meet one of the following criteria:

• They are attending a conference, have been invited to a conference or poster session in order to present a paper or research, or to participate as a speaker or a panelist.
• They are enrolled in a professional development course, training program or workshop.

Grants are to be used to subsidize the cost of attending the conference, or to help defray the cost of participating in a professional development activity. (Please note: these grants cannot be used to defray the costs of Faculty of Information MI/MMSt/BI degree program courses.)

A committee of alumni volunteers will decide the grant amount awarded to each recipient, but no individual award will exceed $500. A student may receive only one grant during their program at the Faculty of Information. Grant recipients will be acknowledged on the Faculty website.

For each application cycle, one grant be reserved for a Black or Indigenous student.

Applicants must:

Be currently registered in the MI, MMSt, or BI programs at the Faculty of Information

Be attending a conference for which they are applying

OR

Have been invited to present a poster session, or a paper, or participate as a speaker/panelist at the conference for which they are applying

OR

Be enrolled in a professional development course, training program, or workshop.

Be able to demonstrate how a grant would assist with the costs of attending the conference, or enrolling in the professional development course, training program, or workshop.

Meeting the minimum qualifications of the grant does not guarantee winning a grant. Grants are assessed on a competitive basis.

Selection will be made by the FIAA Grants and Awards Committee, based on the following criteria:

Ability to clearly demonstrate how the grant would assist with defraying the costs of conference attendance/professional development course, training program, or workshop.

Quality of letter specifying how conference attendance/research/professional development enrollment grant will benefit the applicant in their graduate program.

Quality of applicant’s letter of support; individualized letters are preferred.

Overall quality of the application

All applicants will be notified of the results of their application by email.

If awarded a grant, applicants must:

Commit to reporting on their conference experience/research project/professional development experience and supplying a photograph in order to receive the grant

Complete an expense form with all original receipts attached, including boarding passes for flights, or tickets for train trips (local transportation within the GTA is generally not eligible). Expense forms are also available at the iSchool Student Services Office.

All required documentation must be submitted by the date indicated in the student’s grant notification email (i.e. within one month of being notified of receiving a grant

OR

for conferences/activities/courses that will be taking place in the future, one month after the end of the conference/activity/course). The grant will be forfeited if all items are not received by Student Services by the deadline date.

Applicants must:

1. Submit one application package, containing the following items:

A completed Application form

A letter (max. 2 pages) that includes the title of the presentation/course; a statement about how conference/course participation will benefit your education/research/career; a statement about how conference/course participation is relevant to your education/research/career; and a breakdown of the costs and how this grant will assist with conference/research/course-related costs.

Optional: A letter of support from a sponsoring iSchool Faculty member (can be a sessional instructor affiliated with the iSchool) or a former or current colleague, supervisor, or non-iSchool professor. The letter may wish to address aspects such as: the student’s character/skills/abilities, the quality of the student’s paper/research/work, the significance or importance of attendance at the conference/course or their research, any accomplishments the student has had in the class/under the sponsor’s supervision, and any other information to assist the Grants & Awards Committee to make its grant decisions.

2. Submit the complete application package via email to:

Hujma Chowdhury (Chair, FIAA Grants & Awards Committee) h.chowdhury@utoronto.ca

Deadlines for receipt of applications are approximately December 15 and April 15 of each year.

If you are applying for a grant in the Fall 2023 session, your conference/research activity must occur between September 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023.

The deadline date for the Fall 2023 grant applications is Friday, December 15, 2023.

If you are applying for a grant in the Winter 2024 session, your conference/research activity must occur between January 1, 2024 and August 31, 2024.

The deadline date for the Winter 2024 grant applications is Monday, April 15, 2024.