Objectives

The main objective of supporting undergraduate students to participate in academic events (conferences, symposia, competitions, and professional meetings) is to:

1. enhance students research skills.
2. encourage students involvement in academic research
3. encourage students to intricate and exchange ideas on a global platforms with internationally well-known scholars, researchers, and people from industry and academia.

This would serve KFUPM’s interests in promoting the undergraduate research and aid the undergraduate students in their future academic, industrial or research careers. On other hand, the participation of undergraduate students in the national, regional and international sientisic events is essential to highlight their achievements in the field of research and boost the image of KFUPM in the international research arena. This will also help the students to understand the expectations of the global community in terms of research and the importance on the part of the students to select and attend well organized reputable academic events, which allows them to attend and exhibit their ideas.

 

Support Venues

An undergraduate student may be supported to attend through the following support venues:

1. An application for support to attend and present a research paper. The application must be initiated by the student and his research supervisor.
2. A nomination for attendance from the academic department to which the student belongs. This could be in response to a university-approved call for nominations from a unit within KFUPM or initiated from the academic department itself.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible for this support, the undergraduate student must satisfy the following conditions:

1. Active undergraduate student enrolled for the semester in which the academic event is held and also at the time of application.
2. Current GPA should be ≥ 3. Exceptionally performing students in Prep. Year and Freshman level may also be considered on a case-by-case basis.
3. Good English profeciency and communication skills.
4. In case of attendance based on a submitted application:
   • the student should have a research supervisor, through whom the student can initiate the request for academic event attendance.
   • the research supervisor must provide an evaluation report of the student’s rehearsal presentation, English proficiency and communication skills.
5. Student should have a record of good conduct (Responsibility of URO in coordination with DSA).

It is important to note that this support is very competitive, and simply satisfying the eligibility criteria above does not guarantee getting the support. All requests and nominations will be evaluated and decisions will be made based on evaluations and availablity of budget.

Other Eligibility Considerations

1. Events attendance should not negatively affect the academic studies and duties.
2. Students enrolled in summer semester have less flexibility in getting the support.
3. To maximize the availability of support to students, the total number of academic events to be attended by a student during his undergraduate academic life in the University is capped as follows:
   • up to two 2 local academic events (inside KSA), and
   • at most 1 regional or international academic event.

In any case, requests will be subjected to the eligibility criteria mentioned in section 3.

Processing of Attendance Requests

1. Attendance based on a Paper Presentation

   A student intending to present a research paper is expected to work with his research supervisor on selecting a good-quality conference and preparing the conference attendance request. The application, which must be endorsed by the research supervisor, follows the procedure illustrated in the chart below.

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   The application is first submitted to the Department Chairman for his input and endorsement. Subsequently, the application is submitted to the Dean of the College. Then, it is forwarded to a Review Committee. The committee, in coordination with URO, evaluates the quality of the event and then evaluates the status of the student in terms of his eligibility to attend the conference, his academic record, in coordination with DSA. Applications for students who have violations may be rejected according to the DSA regulations for students’ international participations.

   The application is then sent to the Vice President for Academic Affairs, to H.E the President for approval and subsequently sent to the Ministry of Education (for Saudi Students) to get their approval as well.

   The approval, once received by the committee, is communicated to the respective student, his Department Chairman, his research supervisor and the Student Fund.

2. Attendance based on Nomination

   Nominations of students to participate in good quality events can be made by the academic departments. Nominations must be accompanied by a clear justification of the significance and the value of the academic event in which participation is sought and how the nominated students are going to benefit from this activity.

   These nominations will first have to be submitted to the Review Committee, and will subsequently go through the same procedure as that for paper presentation, shown in the previous chart.

Nature of the Support

Undergraduate students attending academic events based either on their paper presentation or through nomination will be compensated with the following:

A daily lump sum amount that is calculated based on the actual number of days of the event, the extra number of days (as given in Table 1.2) and the associated registration and visa fees, as per the following formula:

• Amount = (actual event days + extra days as per Table 1.2) * compensation per day.
• Remark: It is left to the Review Committee to add extra days for the events with high registration and visa fees.

General Regulations

The following important considerations should be observed:

1. Event Blackout Dates are the dates during which the students are not allowed to attend academic events. These periods are listed in Table 1.1
2. The appropriate affiliation of the University in any submission to be presented must be prominently clearly given next to the names of the participants. The University should be exclusively acknowledged in full with the project number in case of the paper resulting from a funded project.
3. Complete applications for event attendance must be received in the Undergraduate Research Office at least (45) forty-five working days prior to the event commencement date. Adhering to this deadline will enable reviewing the applications in a timely manner and consequently securing the approval by the University (and the Ministry if necessary).
4. For conferences, the number of days for the technical sessions is counted. Registration and other social function days are excluded. A maximum of one extra day may be granted for workshops and tutorials if they happen to be in the beginning or at the end of the conference technical sessions. These will be treated on a case-by-case basis.
5. The maximum number of days (conference or event duration) is seven days. No support will cover longer durations.
6. Supported Student is obligated to give a presentation on his experience in a public event organized by the URO.
7. Since the active participation of the student in the academic event is the main goal of this support, the student should actively participate in the event, e.g. a presenter or a competitor. The support won’t be granted for attendance only.
8. Priority will be given to the student who never participated in international events.

Table 1.1: Event Attendance Restricted Periods

Period of the Year	Allowed/ Not Allowed
First week of classes of First, Second and Summer semesters.	Not allowed.
The final examination periods of First, Second and Summer semesters upto and including the last final exam day for the student.	Not allowed.
Students involved in Co-op and Summer training.	Allowed if training period is not affected (Co-op student should complete 28 working weeks and summer training students should complete 8 weeks) and his training organization has approved his short leave.
Midterm and major exam days.	Not allowed (proper arrangements will have to be made to ensure the students exams are not affected – there will be no excuses issued for attending events).

Table 1.2 Number of days (in addition to the actual event days) for different regions

	Region	Countries	Extra number of days (in addition to the actual event days) (*)
Local Events	Region A	Saudi Arabia  Less than 50Km from KFUPM,e.g. Dammam, Khobar, Dhahran, etc. 0 50Km to 200 Km from KFUPM, e.g. Jubail, Hasa, etc. 0 Riyadh 1 More than 200 Km from KFUPM, e.g. Jeddah, Taif, Yanbu, etc. 2
Regional Events	Region B	Bahrain	0
	Region C	GCC-Countries except Bahrain	2
	Region D	Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Cyprus Egypt and Sudan Iran	3
	Region E	All other African countries except South Africa Central Asian Countries Pakistan and India Turkey and Greece	3
International Events	Region F	China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea All other European countries South Africa	4
	Region G	North America: USA and Canada All South American Countries Japan, Australia and New Zealand	4

(*) Compensation per day will be according to the Student’s Fund regulations.
(**) Extra number of days may be adjusted according to the Student’s Fund regulations.