switching projects..$$ issue?

[suspechosa]

I am an anthropologist (just in case other anthropologists have had experience with this..)

So wayyyy back in September I thought I wanted to study x on one continent. In October I received an internal, competitive grant to study x on one continent for preliminary research.

However, in the past 7 months my interests have changed and now I want to study y on a different continent.

Am I allowed to use that money I received for the project I am now interested in or is that a big no no and I either have to go ahead with the original project I had outlined, then collect other money for what I now want to do or do I just give it back to them and say my interests have changed??

I know this will probably vary- but I wanted to know if changing projects and using the money for a different project than I said I wanted to was something that isn't done..

Any advice would be much appreciated, thank you!!

[rising_star]

When I was in a similar situation (studying the same topic but changed countries), my advisor told me to get the approval of the folks that gave me the grant before spending their money on something that wasn't really what they originally gave me the money for. In my case, they were fine with the change (it was for predissertation fieldwork so I think they were more flexible because of that).

Good luck!