Funding: Doctoral Students

‘Backpack money’

Each doctoral student receives their own so-called ‘backpack money’, officially termed “funds for non-graduated researchers” (in Swedish: “medel för ograduerade forskare”) for expenses associated with their doctoral studies, e.g. literature, conferences, field work.

These funds amount to a total of 40,000 SEK per person. The sources of this sum vary depending on whether the doctoral student is financed through faculty resources, a project, or another arrangement. In order to facilitate planning and transparency, the funds should be made available to project doctoral students at the beginning of the project, as is the default case for regular doctoral students.

Once the new doctoral students start their employment, an individual so-called ‘activity’ (“aktivitet” in Swedish), a unique combination of initials and numbers, will be created in the university-internal economic online systems Lupin/Proceedo and Primula. This activity represents a doctoral student's financial working account. The activity number should be used in Lupin/Proceedo when paying invoices, and in the Primula system when creating a travel bill for reimbursements of costs previously paid from private funds. Remember to always use the Lupin/Proceedo system for any purchases.  

All invoices that are to be paid from the backpack need to be paid before your employment ends. Keep this in mind when planning. It may for instance be advisable to not book a new trip right before the employment ends. 

For questions about the establishment and use of your activity, please contact the department’s finance officers. If you are unsure if certain expenses can or should be covered by your backpack money, please check with your supervisors beforehand.

Further information can be found on the site PhD handbook here.

Travel

When booking or reporting expenses for a travel-related good or service in the Lupin/Proceedo system, please provide at least the following information in the description field: Name of supplier, type of good or service you are paying for and your activity. 

Note that you first need to choose account (Swedish “konto”) when you pay invoices, followed by your activity number. This leads to the format “253091.21.XXXXXX” for regular PhD positions and “253091.35.XXXXXX” for project-financed doctoral student positions (with the final digits being your personal activity number). You can also search for your activity in Lupin/Proceedo by typing in your initials.

Remember that if you choose foreign per diem allowance, this will be added to your salary, but it will be charged the account in question (backpack, grant or similar).

Links to Lund University staff pages:

Booking business travel (conferences, field work, research stays, etc.)

Reporting expenses for business travel

Books, material & equipment

You should always order books directly through Lupin/Proceedo. Since 1 April 2019, all purchases in the public sector are required by law to be invoiced electronically. 

General information on ordering and invoicing (books, material and other equipment)

Further information about Purchases, invoices, finances can be found on the LU staff pages here.

Applying for additional funding

Many doctoral students apply for grants to increase their backpack money and afford additional conference trips, field trips, or purchases of other materials. Contact Sofie Lindmark (see right margin) both before you apply for scholarships and after you have received them. Other funds do not go into the backpack pot, but are kept as separate “activities”, and Sofie helps with this. 

If you apply for a grant, you need to provide Lund University's bank details, and not your private bank account. See bank information further down in the text. Both funding and costs need to go through Lund University. You must also book your trips and pay all invoices through Lund University's systems, so that the university's insurance will apply. Some scholarship amounts are very small, but this also applies to these. 

When you find out that you have received a grant, you must request the money using a special document in order to be able to use it. If you do it too late, you will lose the money. Regarding the faculty's travel grants, these should be requested directly.

Research funding

Travel and research grants

Invoices

Read this guide on how to review invoices in Lupin/Proceedo: 

https://www.ekonomiwebben.lu.se/sites/ekonomiwebben.lu.se/files/2025-04/guide-lupin-proceedo-reviewing-invoices.pdf 

Bank information

At some occasions, you may be asked to submit Lund University's organization number or bank details. You can find such information here (in Swedish):

https://www.ekonomiwebben.lu.se/mitt-arbete/overgripande-om-ekonomi-och-redovisning/bankinformation-och-intyg#Bankinformation