We are keen to engage with students and share the benefits of membership of the IMA. The University Liaison Grants are available to give university student mathematical societies some funding for activities to enhance their programmes for their members and to promote mathematics.

Grants of up to £400 can be used to support:

  • mathematical activities (such as putting on talks of mathematical interest, printing a mathematical newsletter or travelling as a group to IMA Early Career Mathematicians’ conferences or places of mathematical interest);
  • supporting students participate in and attend the Tomorrow’s Mathematicians Today Conference
  • careers activities;
  • promotional activities (printing t-shirts, hoodies, pens, etc. including the IMA logo); or
  • networking activities, quizzes etc.

University Liaison Grants – General notes

  • Speaker travel expenses are acceptable but not fees – we expect mathematical speakers to give their time to you as their contribution to your profession.
  • Presentations/talks to students by IMA staff representatives. Our time and travel expenses are covered and don’t impact on your grant funds.
  • Modest food costs to encourage attendance and venue costs (e.g. if you have to cover late opening costs for lecture hall use after hours or internal university room charges) can be met.
  • Logo Clothing costs – don’t designate more than half of the grant to this and if for sports kits, then think about the gender balance of the distribution of resources: is it a mixed team?
  • The IMA accepts that some of its grant may be used indirectly for events such as Balls. No more than £80 of the IMA grant should be assigned to these activities in any one year.
  • To qualify for the full £400, we do require that you supply the name of a full-time academic staff member who is a member of the IMA (with their permission). If this is not possible, the grant is limited to £200.

How to Apply and how it works

Fill in the form below and email the completed version to Jenny May Roberts, IMA Membership Development Executive Jenny.Roberts@ima.org.uk

When your grant is approved we will email to you to confirm and to authorise you to invoice us for the grant payment.
Your treasurer must use the confirmation email to get your university or student union to invoice us.
We pay the money to your account by electronic (BACS) transfer. Please note that this must be a university, Student Union or MathsSoc account – grant payments cannot be made to individual bank accounts. This includes those of staff and students.

We ask for a report at the end of the academic year in which the grant was awarded. If you want to write up your activities with a bit more qualitative detail than the basic reporting requirements we can publish them across IMA channels such as our in-house magazine Mathematics Today, eNewsletters or social media. We are happy to include accompanying pictures if you wish but please do ensure you have permission from those featured to be shared in this way.

If you applied very late in the academic year for the money for the following year we can log that in the summary report to the Higher Education Committee.

We also ask for the opportunity for the Membership Development Executive to present our Maths Careers talk to your members.

Related Documents

University Liaison Grant Application Form Oct 2023