Travel

Go to the Visit Notice form (external site).

Overview

Who is supported

Support is available to people directly funded by GridPP and to other people in connection with GridPP activities when appropriate.

What is supported

GridPP funds will be used to support travel, up to a predetermined annual maximum, in direct support of its programme of work in the following areas:

  1. Conferences and workshops;
  2. GridPP Collaboration meetings;
  3. Management meetings;
  4. Other travel directly relevant to GridPP activities.

For conferences and workshops, a paragraph case, based on active participation and anticipated value to GridPP, should be sent in advance to the UK travel budget holder. A costing estimate should be included. In situations where either the costs or demand is high, participation may be limited to those presenting papers, organizing sessions or similar activities.

Attendance to meetings where the scope is wider than Grid will be supported in cases where the attendee expects to spend in excess of 60% of the visit on grid related matters. (e.g. attendance at experiment specific collaboration weeks).

Reviewing the policy

This policy will be kept under review and will accordingly be updated from time to time. GridPP reserves the right at any time to invoke additional guidelines and restrictions in order to maintain consistency with GridPP goals or to remain within allocated budgets. Please check before making travel arrangements. Any questions arising from this policy should be addressed to the UK travel budget holder in the first instance.

Procedures

Before you travel

Each institute has established local procedures for travel that should be followed. In general you should seek approval for all travel in advance from your line manager before submitting a Visit Notice to GridPP if required (see below).

Visit Notices

Visit Notices are required in advance for all international travel, regardless of whether this cost will be shared with another project. A visit notice is not generally required for UK travel unless there are exceptional costs (such as plane tickets over £250; train tickets over £150; or hotels over £100/night). Exceptionally, GridPP may request Visit Notices for travel to UK events where the number of attendees needs to be moderated.

Please also note that Visit Notices are required in good time before the actual trip to allow for completion of approval. Only in very, very rare exceptions should a Visit Notice be submitted at the last minute.

Making claims

Claims are made via your local institutes according to the local policies and procedures. All claims should normally be submitted within four weeks of completion of the visit.

Making exceptions

For any travel not covered by, or in exception to, the policy described here, a justification of up to one page in length should be sent to the PMB where it will be considered at the following weekly meeting.

Visit Properties

Location

  • Overseas trips: GridPP funded staff are expected only rarely to be making overseas trips of more than 2 weeks. Such trips require a strong case to be made justifying the travel, and may be referred to the PMB for approval. GridPP would not normally expect to fund other staff for such trips. However, if a very strong case is made, part-funding could be allowed up to a maximum of 50%, again with possible referral to the PMB and discussion with the relevant experiment budget holder.
  • Overseas experiments: Systems administration staff wishing to attend an overseas experiment meeting should first make a case justifying the visit. It is anticipated that such attendance would normally be limited to a small number of people from GridPP on each occasion.

Duration

  • Short visits: For trips with a duration of less than two weeks, the Purpose of Visit box on the Visit Notice should be used to very briefly justify the visit. In some instances it may be necessary to back this with an explanatory email to the UK travel budget holder.
  • Long visits: It is not anticipated that travel longer than three months will be supported by GridPP.

Frequency

  • Second trips: Only exceptionally will a second trip of duration between one and two weeks be permitted by an individual within a month of a previous trip to the same location. A special case should be made in advance to the UK travel budget holder in such a situation as to why this is necessary.

Exclusions

Students

GridPP is not able to support travel for students. Applications for such support should be made through the usual research council studentship channels.

Training courses and summer schools

GridPP is not normally able to support costs of attending training courses, summer schools, etc. However, in some cases where direct links exist (e.g. the EGEE Training Courses) a reasonable level of support should be forthcoming. In such cases an explanatory email explaining the relevance, estimated costs, etc should be sent to the UK travel budget holder prior to submitting a Visit Notice.

 

Revisions
  • 1.0 – 27th April 2004;
  • 1.1 – 20th July 2004;
  • 1.2 – 16th May 2005;
  • 1.3 – 8th September 2005;
  • 1.4 – 14th November 2005;
  • 1.5 – 26th June 2007;
  • 1.6 – 18th July 2012;
  • 1.7 – 21st November 2015 (TW).