For Recipients of Fellowships in Data Curation

The following pertains to all Postdoctoral Fellows in Data Curation for the Sciences and Social Sciences and to 2013 Postdoctoral Fellows in Data Curation for Medieval Studies.

Important Documents and Links

Research and Travel Stipends for Postdoctoral Fellows in Data Curation

During their two-year appointments, CLIR/DLF Postdoctoral Fellows in Data Curation receive annual stipends for elective professional development expenses. The stipend is in addition to the reimbursement benefits for expenses related to attending required program meetings. All benefits are contingent upon each fellow's continued employment at their host institution under the terms of their fellowship employment contract or appointment letter. Use of the stipend must support a fellow's own professional and intellectual development related to research data curation or the curation of other digital resources supporting academic research.

Fellows must sign an agreement acknowledging proper use of these funds before they can receive the stipend. 2013 Fellows will sign this agreement at their summer seminar. An agreement will be electronically distributed to continuing 2012 Fellows.

Fellows will report all expenses, as well as provide electronic copies of all related receipts, in every semiannual report. Any unexpended portion of the travel stipend must be returned to CLIR at the end of the fellowship.

Stipends will be sent directly to Fellows on or around September 1 each year, or at the date and one-year anniversary of their time of appointment, if later than September. 2012 Fellows will receive the remainder of their stipend in September 2013, minus any reimbursements they claimed by June 30, 2013 for elective professional development expenses.

Allowable Expenses

Allowable professional development expenses include those related to research, education, training, and attending academic and professional conferences. Examples of allowable expenses include but are not limited to:

• professional memberships;
• books or journal subscriptions not available at the fellow’s institution;
• hardware or software not available at the fellow’s institution;
• workshop or training tuition or fees; or
• fellows' travel essential for and directly related to research, education, training, or attending academic and professional conferences.

Before using their stipend for expenses that do not fall into one of the above categories, fellows should write Christa Williford, Program Officer, at cwilliford@clir.org requesting confirmation that their proposed expense is allowable.

Research activities connected to the curation of research data or other digital resources supporting academic research may include but are not limited to:

• conducting needs assessments related to data curation practices and services or digital research support;
• comparing data curation or digital research needs and practices across domains, institutions, or national borders;
• developing best practices for data management or digital preservation plan development for grant-funded projects in particular domains;
• investigating and making recommendations for data collection, analysis, and preservation for specific initiatives or domains;
• assessing the effectiveness of data curation and/or digital research support services; or
• developing best practices for promoting the data-related or digital research support services of academic libraries to researchers.

Education or training activities connected to the curation of research data or other digital resources supporting academic research may include but are not limited to the study of:

• data management or digital humanities practices, applications and/or tools;
• methods, applications and/or tools for the computational analysis of research data or other digital content for research;
• digital preservation practices, applications and/or tools, including digital forensics; or
• researcher information behavior.

Travel- and Conference-related expenses

Travel- and conference-related expenses must be in accordance with CLIR's travel policy. Allowable travel expenses include conference fees and actual transportation, food, and lodging costs incurred on fellowship-related business.