What is FOBOS?
An informative movie can be found in the header of this page!
FOBOS, in Dutch, stands for Financial Support Special Circumstances of Students. This support ensures that if you have suffered a study delay due to special circumstances, you can receive a scholarship for this. Within FOBOS there are four types of scholarships, namely a top-level sports grant, a top-level arts grant, a force majeure allowance, or an engagement grant. Information about all four types of scholarships can be found on the UT website.
The UT facilitates board- and committee work in the form of engagement grants. As Student Union, we are responsible for the engagement grants. The Engagement Grants are split up into 6 categories:
- Category 1: Engagement that is easy executable besides your studies (next to your study week of 40 hours). No grants are given (yet) to engagement in this category. E.g. students who are doing a part-time committee for not a substantial amount of hours a week or students that are leading a very small organisation.
- Category 2: Engagement in this category is engagement that is not easily done besides one’s studies. For example part-time or full-time boards.
- Category 3: This is a special category with grants for special boards, approved by the Executive Board. For example, the Kick-In Committee, Create Tomorrow, etc.
- Category 4: This is a special FOBOS for the student teams.
- Category 5: The remaining grants are put in this category. This FOBOS is mostly available for committees or small boards and it is divided by the Umbrellas and the SU. Contact your umbrella for more information.
- Category 6: This is a special FOBOS category for entrepreneurial students. This FOBOS category is currently running as a pilot. More information about this category can be found here.
REQUIREMENTS
To be eligible for receiving the engagement grants, students will have to meet the conditions of the engagement grants scheme in the FOBOS policy. This will be checked by the registry. Any remaining engagement grants from a student who don not comply with the conditions of the engagement grants scheme cannot be reallocated. These requirements include among others the recognised period, grants for pre-master students and first-year bachelor students, amount of a grant, obtaining credits, and the extent of the support. Below you can find a FOBOS information document with information about these requirements. This is also incorporated in the policy of FOBOS. Please check these requirements before the start of your board year to not be surprised at the time of the application!
Application process
Engagement grants can be applied for per calendar year because the financial circle of the UT runs from calendar year till calendar year. No more than 1 grant per month can be awarded in the active period. This means that grants can only be distributed to a student in the exact months the student was active. When your engagement activities are continuous in calendar years, you have to request grants in January 2024 for your active months in 2023, and in January 2025 for the calendar year 2024.
The application process for engagement grants is dependent on the category in which the application falls. The policy for the first four categories is reviewed every two years. This policy determines how many grants can be divided per sector.
- December: The CPO will send an e-mail to the organisations in the policy that the application procedure starts from January till March. More information on how to request grants will be included.
- January – March: Application procedure period
- March: The CPO will check whether all students who applicated are eligible for a grant. If a student is not eligible for a grant, the contact person will receive a message about this and he or she will have to send a new distribution.
- Before April 1st: The students who receive a grant must confirm this before April 1st.
The engagement grants for category 5 are divided by the Student Union in corporation with the umbrella organisations. More information about the application process for engagement grants for entrepreneurial students (category 6) can be found here.
Regulations
An overview of the FOBOS in 2022-2023 including an overview of organisations eligible for receiving grants can be found in the documents below. Moreover, in the document ‘Information Document FOBOS’ you can find more information about the requirements to receive grants. For more information concerning the engagement grant (application), you can also visit this webpage.