4. ELIGIBILITY

- All CPUT permanent staff and those appointed on contracts of 2 years or more.
- Current NRF grant holders (IRDP or Thuthuka) are NOT eligible to apply for URF.

5. TARGET

- First time applicants who have not previously been supported institutionally or by any other agency such as, for example, NRF.
- Applicants who have been supported previously but have received no support from other agencies such as NRF.
- Staff members who wish to upgrade their qualifications but are not in receipt of a staff development grant.
- Supervisors of CPUT funded postgraduate students who need support in terms of project running costs.

6. CONDITIONS

- If an applicant is successful in applying for a URF grant, and becomes an NRF grantholder (IRDP or Thuthuka) in the same funding year, the applicant must declare this fact, and the URF will be cancelled.
- A Principal Investigator will be allowed to submit one application for his/her own research project as well as an application for each postgraduate student being supervised. Student proposals should each have their own budget.
- The funds may be used to support research running costs, B.Tech research assistants' salaries, field work travel and running costs, purchase of minor equipment not supported by the departmental equipment budget, etc.
- URF can not be used to supplement the researcher's own salary.
- The Research Office reserves the right to cancel a grant if none of the funds have been used by August of the year in which the funds were granted. Researchers have unbtil December each year to spend their URF allocations.
- All unused URF funds allocated for use in 2007 will be cancelled on 31 December 2008. Unless successfully motivated for, all unused URF funds allocated in 2008 will revert to the URF cost centre for further redistribution.
- The maximum amount which will be allocated to a Principal Investigator's application is R75 000 per application.
- The maximum allocation per student application will be R20 000 for Master's students and R40 000 for doctoral students. OIn cases where these allocations are insufficient, the supervisor may submit a detailed motivation for an increased allocation.
- The total amount that is available for URF allocations is determined by the institution, not the Research Office.

7. PRIORITIZATION

Applications are individually assessed on merit and will be prioritised according to the following factors:
- Development status of the applicant.
- Scientific merit of the application.
- Track record of applicant with respect to delivery of projected research outputs.
- Source of other funding and support.

8. EXCLUSIONS

The following items will NOT be funded:
- Undergraduate and post graduate bursaries and bursary top-ups.
- International visits and international conferences.
- Consultancy fees.
- Internet vouchers, stationery, textbooks.
- Office furniture.
- PCs, laptops, memory sticks, printers, printer cartridges, cell phones. Exceptions will be considered for researchers who use computers and related equipment as being their only "laboratory"-type expenses in their field of research.
- Editing and proof-reading.
- Printing, binding and copying of theses.
- Journal and professional body subscriptions.
- Research costs for NRF bursars (as those should be covered through the NRF grant).
- Supplementation of researchers' salaries.
- Large items of equipment > R25 000.

9. REVIEW, EVALUATION AND ALLOCATION

After the closing date for submissions (19 September), all applications will be sent out for double reviewing. If both reviews are returned, a committee consisting of the following will do the evaluation of the reviewer reports, and the final allocation of URF:
- the DVC.
- the Director of Research.
- all Faculty contact persons.

10. APPLICATION FORMS

Please download the relevant MSWord-based form(s) by clicking below. Note that Form 1 MUST be pre-filtered by the relevant Faculty's Faculty Research Committee, before submitting it.

1. I want to apply for URF for my research project: download Form 1 (F1) here. Please note that URF applications will only be considered if a progress report of previous successful URF allocations (Form 3) to the applicant is submitted with F1.

2. I want to apply for URF for my postgraduate student's research project: download Form 1A (F1A) here.

3. I need to review an URF application: download Form 2 (F2) here.

4. I need to complete a progress report for previously allocated URF: download Form 3 (F3) here.