Three-thousand dollars of each annual membership is specifically earmarked to support PI participation in IMA programs, workshops, tutorials, conferences, and seminars. PIs can spend the available funds from their IMA account at the discretion of the PI contact to:

• support PI faculty, postdocs, and graduate students to participate in IMA programs, including other PI conferences
• support professional visits to PI institutions by scientists and graduate students in residence at the IMA or at other IMA PIs
• supplement other IMA funding for sabbatical and long-term visits to the IMA
• obtain a visiting position. PI faculty are given preferential consideration for visiting appointments. The IMA is an ideal location for junior faculty wishing to connect to applications and for established faculty looking to realign their research in more interdisciplinary directions.

Applications for sabbatical visits from PI faculty are encouraged. Membership in the IMA removes geographical and cultural barriers and greatly increases PI faculty and graduate student participation in mathematical research.

• Allowable expenses are travel (airfare, taxi, car rental, mileage), and local expenses (meals and lodging). Other expenses, such as salaries, alcohol, fringe benefits, indirect costs, honoraria, and consultant fees are not allowable.
• In order to release the PI IMA account funds, the IMA requires a brief email from the PI contact (usually the chair of the mathematics department) to visit support staff in advance of the travel stating who is to be supported, whether the support is for travel, local expenses, or both, and any limit to the amount authorized. Upon receipt of the authorization, the IMA accounting staff will contact the visitor regarding the reimbursement process.

The IMA contributes $50,000 per year toward funding conferences held at PIs. PIs are invited yearly to submit proposals for organizing such conferences (with a deadline of November 15) and awards of up to $5000 each are made on a competitive basis in early February. The selection committee for these awards consists of a group of PI chairs. Often these awards serve as effective seed money to generate further support from other funding sources. Faculty, graduate students and postdocs from PIs are eligible to apply for travel funds to attend PI conferences.

Each year, the IMA collaborates with one PI to conduct a PI Graduate Student Summer Program to train graduate students from PIs in a topic relevant to the IMA’s mission. The three- to four-week long program takes place at the organizing PI and is sponsored and supported by the IMA.

PIs are given early access to IMA planning documents. IMA programming is discussed in annual meetings and members are consulted regularly on IMA-related matters. Input from PIs is a key factor in setting the direction of IMA programs.

Through participation in IMA programs, faculty, postdocs, and graduate students from PI departments interact with a broad section of the mathematical sciences community that would not readily be available without the PI membership. Members interact and collaborate with other researchers involved with applications, not only from academic mathematics departments, but also from other disciplines, and from industrial and government laboratories. On a number of occasions, the IMA has run programs specifically designed to foster interaction between PI and PC scientists. Continuing collaboration and consulting relationships have often grown out of contacts made at the IMA. Chairs of PI departments benefit from access to their peers at annual IMA PI meetings.

The IMA is a committed advocate of the value of mathematics to the solution of important problems from other disciplines, industry, and technology. The institute is an important resource for strengthening the position of PI mathematical sciences departments within their own university and cooperating with PI departments to enhance their programs.

PI membership is an ideal way for an institution to express its support for mathematics and its applications. The involvement and support of PI institutions is publicly acknowledged in numerous ways, including listing on the IMA Annual Thematic Program poster, web documents, brochures, and more, increasing visibility and generating good will in the mathematical sciences community.