Assistance grant

The assistance grant is a one-off benefit granted upon a documented request of a doctoral student who, for reasons beyond his control, found himself temporarily in a difficult life situation causing costly and short-term difficulties in studying.

The assistance gran is a benefit dedicated to people who find themselves in a temporarily difficult life situation through no fault of theirs. There are several key differences between an assistance gran and a social grant:

• the social grant is closely related to the applicant’s income situation, a number of other factors are taken into account when considering the grant application;
• the assistance gran is a one-off benefit that can be received up to 2 times during the academic year – as opposed to the social grant, which is monthly;
• The social scholarship is dedicated mainly to people with low income, in the case of the grant, the catalog of circumstances entitling to receive the benefit is much wider.

The regulations of benefits indicate that the assistance gran may be obtained, in particular as a result of:

• the death of the applicant’s child, his / her spouse or parent, provided that the applicant was dependent on the parent;
• loss of medical assistance necessary for study, in particular corrective glasses or rehabilitation equipment;
• loss of a permanent and main source of income by the applicant, his spouse or his parent, provided that the applicant is dependent on parent;
• sudden illness or accident of the applicant or a member of his immediate family;
• the urgent need for the applicant to care for a sick member of the immediate family;
• damage caused by fire, water damage, natural disaster or other catastrophe.

Note, however, that this is an open directory. What does it mean? Apart from those listed above, the application assessment team may also recognize other circumstances that will be demonstrated in the application.

Funds for the social scholarship, such as the assistance grant, the rector’s scholarship and the scholarship for the disabled come from the Scholarship Fund, i.e. funds granted by the Ministry of Education and Science in the form of subsidies. This means that the funds that will not be used (provided that more than 70% of the subsidy funds are spent) are transferred to the next accounting year (ie the next calendar year).

60/40 – maximum proportions for the distribution of the Scholarship Fund. The funds allocated for the rector’s scholarship may not constitute more than 60% of the rector’s scholarship, social and assistance grant.

The maximum amount of the assistance grant is assessed by the UW Student Council Board.

Assistance grant applications can be submitted throughout the entire academic year, also during the summer holidays. Due to the fact that it is a one-off benefit, there is no set day of the month to which the application should be submitted in order to obtain compensation (as is the case with the social grant).

All doctoral students of the University of Warsaw may apply for the assistance grant; the benefit is not payable to a doctoral student with a doctoral degree.

We submit the application via USOSweb. After logging in at www.usosweb.uw.edu.pl to your individual account, go to the COMMON SECTION tab, and then APPLICATIONS. You fill out an Application for assistance grant.

The application is submitted as an electronic document. Electronic submission of applications in USOSweb is done using the action “NEXT: SIGN AND SUBMIT ELECTRONICALLY“. After clicking on this button, USOSweb will open another screen where you will need to enter an authorization code, which will be sent to your email address. Only after the authorization code is entered will the electronic submission of the application via USOSweb take place. Do not submit paper applications.

The application for assistance grant should be submitted immediately, but not later than within three months from the date of the event entitling to granting the benefit, unless the applicant reliably proves and documents that, for reasons beyond his control, it was impossible to submit the application within this period.

The applicant is obliged to document a difficult life situation; in particular, he should demonstrate that there is a cause and effect relationship between a specific event and a temporary difficulty in life causing costly and short-term difficulties in studying, and provide documents enabling the assessment of the applicant’s financial situation in order to determine the amount of the assistance grant.

Filled in – the application is in the process of completion, you can freely make changes to the document. Please note that applications and statements with this status will not be verified.

Delivered – at this stage you can no longer make changes to the application/statement. From this point on, the documents are subject to verification. To avoid problems related to the submission of the application/statement, make sure that USOSweb shows your email in the UW domain. Don’t put off submitting your application until the last moment!

Declared incomplete/Declared incorrect – during the verification of the application, the coordinator found errors or missing documents. Most often, you will find detailed information on how to improve your application in a comment visible in USOSweb or in your email inbox.

Ready for consideration – document verification has been completed. The application is ready for processing.

Verified – the status of the application indicates that a decision will be made available soon.

Considered (decision to be delivered) – the decision will be made/has been made available in USOSweb. Please be patient as the decision will be made available after it is signed, so it may take a few days for it to appear in USOSweb. The decision can be found in the “list of administrative letters” tab (log in to USOSWeb -> Common Section, and then on the left in the column find the “list of administrative letters” tab).

The assistance grant will be paid by the Financial Department of the University of Warsaw on the following dates:

• 19 October 2023
• 17 November 2023
• 18 December 2023
• 18 January 2024
• 19 February 2024
• 18 March 2024
• 19 April 2024
• 17 May 2024
• 19 June 2024
• 19 July 2024
• 19 August 2024
• 19 September 2024

The maximum amount of the assistance grant is PLN 5500. You can get the aid twice in the academic year (for 2 different reasons).

The appeal

An appeal is an appeal against an administrative decision of first instance authorities. If the body issuing the administrative decision is the Rector, the party has the right to request reconsideration of the case. The provisions on appeals against decisions shall apply accordingly to the application for reconsideration of the case.

The body competent to consider the appeal

The body competent to consider the appeal is the Rector of the University of Warsaw.

Time limit for appeal

Pursuant to Art. 129 §2 of the Code of Civil Procedure the appeal shall be filed within fourteen days from the date of notification of the decision to the party. When calculating this deadline, pursuant to Art. 57 §1 of the CCP, the date on which the decision was delivered is not taken into account. This means that if the decision was delivered, for example, on October 1, the deadline for submitting an appeal is October 15.

Mandatory elements of appeal

The appeal should contain at least the following elements:

• indication of the person from whom it comes,
• this person’s address,
• indication of the decision against which the appeal is being lodged,
• signature.

Pursuant to Art. 128 of the Code of Civil Procedure the appeal does not require a detailed justification. It is enough if the appeal shows that the party is not satisfied with the decision issued.

The manner of lodging an appeal

The appeal is submitted to the competent appeal body through the body that issued the decision. The appeal may be made in writing or to the address for electronic delivery (the address for electronic delivery is not the e-mail address of the authority).

BPM – Biuro ds. Pomocy Materialnej / Student Welfare and Support Office;

Income – the definition of income can be found in §2 of Annex 1 to the Benefits Regulations;

Earned income – information on earned income can be found in §5 of Annex 1 to the Benefits Regulations;

Agricultural holding – area of land classified in the land and building register as agricultural land, with the exception of land used for business activity other than agricultural activity, with a total area exceeding 1 ha or 1 conversion ha, owned or owned by a natural person, legal person or an organizational unit, including a company without legal personality;

KJD – Head of the Teaching Unit;

Scholarship Committee for Social Scholarship – a body appointed by the Rector from among students delegated by the competent body of the student government and employees of the University. The task of the commission is to award a social scholarship to students of all fields of study in which the teaching unit organizes education. The committee is also responsible for verifying whether students meet the conditions taken into account when awarding a place in the student dormitory (income and distance) and the criteria influencing the receipt of a place in the student dormitory (e.g. residence in the dormitory in the previous academic year, orphanhood of the applicant);

Scholarship Coordinator – an employee appointed by KJD to conduct matters related to granting a social scholarship to students of a given field of study or fields of study;

De facto guardian – a de facto guardian of the applicant is in particular a person who is dependent – partially or completely – on him, and who is not his parent or legal guardian. In particular, actual care may be provided by the spouse of the applicant’s parent or the person with whom the applicant or his parent stays
in an informal relationship. (§1 section 10 of Annex No. 1 to the Regulations of benefits);

Legal guardian – the applicant’s legal guardian is a person who can submit a family court judgment to prove this fact (§1 (9) of Annex 1 to the Benefits Regulations);

Statements – statements about income not subject to taxation with personal income tax achieved in the base year and statements about the current income situation, in particular containing information on obtaining or loss of income;

Difficult life situation – The Regulations of benefits for students of the University of Warsaw do not contain a closed catalog of events entitling them to apply for the assistance grant. The benefits regulations indicate the following examples of events:

• the death of the applicant’s child, his/her spouse or parent, provided that the applicant was dependent on the parent;
• loss of medical assistance necessary for study, in particular corrective glasses or rehabilitation equipment;
• loss of a permanent and main source of income by the applicant, his spouse or his parent, provided that the applicant is dependent on a parent;
• sudden illness or accident of the applicant or a member of his immediate family;
• the urgent need for the applicant to care for a sick member of the immediate family;
• damage caused by fire, water damage, natural disaster or other catastrophe.

Loss of income – information on loss of income can be found in §4 of Annex 1 to the Benefits Regulations;

Applicant – a student or a doctoral student;

Flat-rate tax certificates – certificates of the head of the tax office on flat-rate income tax on certain revenues earned by natural persons in the base year, containing data of the taxpayer to whom the certificate relates, including: name, surname, PESEL number, and the form of the tax paid, and in the case of tax payment in the form of a tax card – information about the amount of tax due, and in the case of paying tax in the form of a registered lump sum – information about the amount of income and tax rate;

Certificate from the Tax Office – certificates from the tax office about the achieved
in the calendar year preceding the academic year for which the social scholarship is to be awarded, hereinafter referred to as the “base year”, income subject to personal income tax on the principles set out in Art. 27, 30b, 30c, 30e and 30f of the Act of 26 July 1991 on personal income tax (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 1387), containing information about the tax year to which the certificate relates, taxpayer’s data, to which the certificate relates, including: name, surname, PESEL number;

Certificate from the Social Insurance Institution – a certificate of the amount of health insurance premiums paid in each of the months of the base year along with the codes of insurance titles or of no title to insurance in the base year, subject to paragraph 6 point 4 of Annex 2 to the Benefits Regulations.