StOF Board Grants

What is StOF?

If you experience study delays due to special circumstances, you may be eligible for financial compensation from the Student Support Fund (StOF).

Sometimes your studies get delayed because of circumstances beyond your control. For example, illness (including chronic illness), mental health issues, serious family circumstances, or a disability. However, spending a lot of time on board work or participating in top-level sports/cultural activities can also slow down your studies. In some cases, you may be eligible for financial support or compensation.

Whether you qualify for compensation depends on several factors:

The reason (e.g., illness, board work)
How long the situation lasted
When it happened during your studies

FOBOS became StOF

The new StOF regulation will take effect on 1 September 2025 and will replace the previous FOBOS regulation.

If you take on a board year or participate in other forms of student engagement, this may delay your studies. In some cases, you can receive compensation through the StOF regulation.

What counts as board work?

Board positions in associations (sports, culture, social, student teams, etc.)
Participation in representative bodies, such as the University Council or UC-E
Extra & Incidental (large committees and new initiatives)

Appendix 3 of the StOF regulation lists all boards and organisations that are eligible.

How do the grants work?

Each board receives a maximum number of grants (see Appendix 3).
The board itself decides which board members receive the grants.
The board must submit a request for payment within 3 months after the board year ends.

The Committee on Personal Circumstances (CPO) reviews applications on behalf of the Executive Board. If you have questions, you can contact the portfolio holder Personal Development & Education of the Student Union or the CPO secretariat.

For more information, you can visit the website of the CPO: Student support fund (StOF) | SGW

A special arrangement applies to non-EU students in specific boards: they can make use of a waiver instead of board grants. This applies to boards in the study, participation and infrastructure sectors. If you have any questions about this, please contact the Student Union.

Transition from FOBOS to StOF

Scenario 1 - Boards that switched between October 2024 and February 2025

Boards that started between October 2024 and August 2025 have the right to get their payment for the whole board year from the FOBOS policy.

There will be one central FOBOS request moment in January 2026 to request the grants you are eligible for. At that moment you also already request the grants for the future months that your board is active, which in this case are the months January and February 2026. Beforehand, this was requested separately, but this year an exception is made.

The payment of this request will be done within the months April, May and June of 2026, as you can find in the timeline.

All boards that start after September 2025 will work through the StOF policy. For explanation on this, please check Scenario 3.

Scenario 2 – Boards that switched between February 2025 and August 2025

Boards that started between February 2025 and August 2025 do also have the right to get their payment for the whole board year from the FOBOS policy.

There will be one central FOBOS request moment in January 2026 to request the grants you are eligible for. At that moment you also already request the grants for the future months that your board is active, which in this case will be the months January, February, March, April, May, June, July and August 2026, depending on when your board year ends. Beforehand, this was requested separately, but this year an exception is made.

The payment of this request will be done within the months April, May and June of 2026, as you can find in the timeline.

All boards that start after September 2025 will work through the StOF policy. For explanation on this, please check Scenario 3.

Scenario 3 - Boards switching in September 2025 or after

The StOF policy will be implemented from September 2025 onwards. For boards switching in September 2025 or after, the changes are as follows:

Boards can request their StOF grants within a month after their board year ended.
Boards will receive their payment within three months after finishing their board years.

Important note for the upcoming year: The upcoming board of 2025-2026 will be requesting the FOBOS grants from January 2025 - August 2025 for the board before them as well as the StOF grants from September 2025 - September 2026 for themselves. For a visualisation and clarity on this I refer you to the timeline.

General overview for boards in Scenario 3

January-March 2026: requesting the FOBOS grants from January-August 2025
April-June 2026: payment of the FOBOS grants from January-August 2025
September-October 2026: requesting the StOF grants from September 2025-September 2026
October-December 2026: payment of the StOF grants from September 2025-September 2026

For clarity I again refer you to the timeline.

Procedure requesting grants

Scenario 1 & 2 – FOBOS

The requesting of the grants from the FOBOS system happens like before. There will be one FOBOS responsible within the board, called the ‘verdeler’, that makes sure all correct information of board members is present and that all board members request their allocated FOBOS grants correctly. For the full procedure I refer you back to previous board members with experience or the CPO.

Scenario 3 - StOF

For the boards that will work via the StOF system from September onwards there won’t be any central request moments anymore, like there were with FOBOS. The upcoming academic year, the CPO will test whether it works to have the requests open throughout the whole year and do payments throughout the whole year. This will make the administrative process easier. You will request the grants you are eligible for immediately after the end of your board year, regardless of the month your board year ends. It is your own responsibility to do this request!

For the requesting of the grants there will be one StOF responsible within your board that fills out a form/excel sheet (to be determined) with information of the board members (e.g. student number, e-mail address, name etc.) and how many grants the individual board members should receive. The board members then all receive the money directly onto their own bank account.

Extra & Incidental

For the previous FOBOS category 5 Extra & Incidental grants, there will also be a new system in the StOF policy.

There will be three categories:

MUST

The few largest committees with the highest study delay that really need some compensation.
Only awarded when the workload per committee member is higher than 10 hours per week.

OCCASION

Lustrum committees or other non-annual events that are not new initiatives.
Committees only qualify if their workload as a total is more than 5 hours per week per committee member.

REST

Committees that are important and do spend a substantial amount of time on their tasks but aren’t as vital and large as the others.

It is up to the umbrellas each year how it is determined which of the REST group will receive StOF grants. It is suggested to look at the hours per week per committee member, as this gives the best indication of the expected study delay.

The same holds true for the OCCASION category. Umbrellas can determine in each case whether it should be ranked above all the REST committees or if it should be placed somewhere between them.

New initiatives

Within the Extra & Incidental group of StOF, there is also the possibility to request grants for new initiatives. New initiatives are new events, committees or associations that facilitate or organise something for students at the University of Twente (UT). The initiators/organisers of these new initiatives can request StOF grants for the work that they put into the new initiative. Their requests will be considered by the Centre for Educational Support (CES) in cooperation with the Student Union. In order to be eligible for the grants, the new initiative should have a workload of at least 4 or 5 hours a week per person and should be targeted at UT students. The new initiative should really be a new addition to the offer of activities that already exist at the University of Twente. The Student Union has the right to ask extra questions about the new initiative. The new initiative will also be assigned to one of the three E&I categories. You can apply for StOF grants for a new initiative through the following link:

What to do in case of disagreement on the division of the StOF grants within your boards?

With the StOF system it will be up to the boards to divide the grants amongst the board members. This could possibly lead to disagreement within boards. There are a few steps you can follow in case of disagreement on the internal division of the StOF grants within a board.

Discuss the problem with your supervisory/advisory board or previous board members. Their experience could help you come to a solution.
When step one is not successful, the next step will be to discuss the problem with your umbrella or contact person.
If the umbrella or contact person also cannot find a fitting solution, they can discuss the problem with the Student Union.

Summary of the regulation

The information below is a summary. If you think you may be eligible, be sure to read the full regulation!