Conference travel

Policy

It is important to be connected to the research community. Thus, our group has a policy that all postdocs and grad students are expected to attend at minimum 2 conferences per year (more is fine). If it is your first year in the group, you can simply attend the conferences and listen to talks. After your first year, you are expected to be presenting talks or posters at conferences. This will ensure that:

  • you keep up to date on developments in the field

  • you will get to know the people in the field

  • you are broadcasting your work to the research community. Many if not most people learn about new research by hearing about it at a conference. Thus, if you want people to know

    about your work, you must be willing to tell people about it.

You should identify conferences you’d like to attend several months (usually ~4 months, perhaps ~6 months for international travel) in advance. Usually, this is around the same time that abstract deadlines are due.

More about a specific conference (Gordon Research Conference) in this video from Anubhav: https://youtu.be/dTlmBBG0qls?si=vAkDJvsBD2-uE1pf

Important for GSRAs! UC Berkeley travel grants

Graduate students can apply for Conference Travel Grant funding to attend professional conferences or to participate in professional development activities. Each student can apply for the funding twice in their whole study program. For professional conferences, grant amounts will depend on the location of the conference (up to $600 within California, $900 elsewhere in North America, including Canada and Mexico, and $1,500 outside of North America). The amounts provided for professional development support will vary depending on the actual costs, but in no case will a grant exceed $1,500. If you are traveling to a conference, please discuss applying for these funds with Anubhav.

Coordinating conference travel

Once you have identified a conference you’d like to attend, please take the following actions:

  • Tell Anubhav about the conference and what project you’d like to present

  • If this is foreign travel, you need to be very careful. DOE has placed many restrictions on foreign travel, and if you do not follow all the guidelines you will not be reimbursed!

  • As soon as possible - submit a conference travel request form. This form is a very basic (i.e., 2 minutes to fill out) - find the appropriate approval forms on the esdradmin web site. Here are some important things to note:

    • You actually need to fill out TWO forms. The first form is the attending conference request. The second form is the travel request (e.g. domestic travel request, international travel request, etc.). See below also the note about two steps to approval.

    • Note that our group’s travel arranger is Brandi Thompson.

    • If you do not submit the above request forms several months in advance, you may not receive LBNL approval to attend. This is especially the case for any travel outside the U.S. or larger conferences like MRS.

  • If you haven’t done so already, make sure your travel profile (e.g., your frequent flier programs) are completed for the lab. E-mail esdradmin@lbl.gov if you don’t have one yet.

  • Work with Anubhav to submit an abstract. You should send him the proposed abstract (with all details - title, authors, text, figures, etc.) with at least 1 week advance notice.

Note that there is usually a two-step process to approval. The first step is “conference services” approval and the second step is TREX approval. Confusingly, LBNL might send you a “travel approved” email after the first step, with details about the second step hidden only in the body of the email. Make sure you have both approvals before proceeding! If ever in doubt, email esdradmin@lbl.gov

Once you have received approval to attend the conference (and only after receiving both approvals), please take the following steps:

  • Make sure you register for the conference in time to receive any early registration discount (normally on one’s own credit card then reimbursed later, but contact Anubhav if it poses a problem)

  • Book a hotel (normally on one’s own credit card then reimbursed later, but again contact Anubhav if it poses a problem). Note that the costs to the hotel need to be reasonable for the city you are staying ; if it is the official conference hotel, that is usually fine.

  • Book a flight - please do this early to avoid last-minute flight rate spikes. For help with this step, use the “Local travel request”, “domestic travel request” or “foreign travel request” on the esdradmin web site: http://bit.ly/2vGGWe9 . You can also book in coordination with Brandi Thompson with LBNL making the booking. This works better if you identify desired flights in advance, otherwise give Brandi the preferred dates and times. Booking your own flights is NOT recommended, please contact Anubhav if you think there is a reason to book your own flight.

  • If you are planning to combine vacation and travel, make sure to not exceed the amount of personal days allowed by DOE. Note that days spent traveling to and from the conference count as work days.

Reimbursement

In terms of travel receipts and reimbursement:

  • If you need early reimbursement, please send an email to esdradmin@lbl.gov to see if you can get registration costs, etc. reimbursed early. Note that this is not the normal procedure but if you have a need, it should be possible to have this arranged.

  • If you are traveling with funding through LBNL (i.e., most cases), you do not need to save receipts for meals. You will receive a per diem instead. You also do not need receipts for taxi rides under $75, although Anubhav usually submits them anyway when he has them. You also do not need to save your actual airplane tickets for lab-purchased airfare.

  • If you are traveling with outside funding (e.g., the conference organizers are going to reimburse you), save all receipts and tickets as they may be needed for reimbursement. The lab may also need these even if others are paying.

  • The proper way to request reimbursements for trips within the US is through the esdradmin site’s “Travel:Domestic” tab. If you have trouble, you can email esdradmin@lbl.gov.

  • For international trips (including Canada!), you should get in touch with Anubhav and with the ESDR admin person that you work with. That person will provide you a corresponding form and help you through the (more complex) process of international-travel reimbursement, and Anubhav should approve your comments for those forms as they are reviewed closely. You need to start the process for international travel very early - do not wait.

  • Note that you can have your travel reimbursement direct-deposited into your bank account, which saves the hassle of receiving and depositing checks. More information about how to set this up is at: https://travel.lbl.gov

  • Things to remember reimbursing:

    • registration costs

    • hotel costs

    • baggage fees

    • Uber / taxi fare

    • rental car

    • any last-minute poster printing

    • flights (only if you booked yourself)

    Pro tip: If you want to see the status of your conference requests, log in to this sheet with your LBNL account: http://bit.ly/2n6XCe3 You can filter the sheet to your requests by right-clicking on the name column and choosing the filter option. You should look for the “(ADMINS ONLY) Approval status” column in order to check your status.

Hotel policies, "AirBnbs", etc.

  • Use of Airbnb: It is possible to stay in an airbnb, but the receipts and documentation are more complicated. Therefore it is typically suggested and much simpler to stay in a standard hotel. Contact Anubhav before staying in an AirBnb as you want to make sure DOE policies have not changed since the last time this document was updated.

  • For those without fear of extra paperwork, and after you have confirmed this information is still relevant:

    • The rental agreement will need to be signed by the individual renting the property with no affiliation to the Laboratory, DOE, or the University of California.

    • A rental agreement cannot be signed for a property which is owned by a Laboratory or University employee.

    • When submitting for reimbursement, please ensure the following documents are attached to the expense report:

      • Rental/lease agreement

      • Payment receipt (must include owner/property manager name/phone, property address, total rent paid, and payment date (excluding deposits)

      • Itemized list of miscellaneous expenses (if applicable)

      • List of those occupying the property and dates

    • Travelers will not be reimbursed for non-commercial lodging rates which exceed the published per diem rate (https://bit.ly/2RMweBF). In addition to the above, please note the following restrictions:

      • Cannot be submitted for a prepayment (TREX or eRFIC)

      • Deposits and cancellation fees are non-reimbursable

      • Damage to the property is the responsibility of the traveler(s)

    • Please note, the Laboratory will not prepay or authorize a pre-payment expense report for non-commercial lodging.

Poster printing

To have a poster printed, send an email to John Rhodin (PA Creative) at JHRhodin@lbl.gov and Anubhav. Include:

  • your poster (preferably as PDF)

  • required dimensions

  • project id (given to you by Anubhav)

There should be at least a 48 hour (and ideally 3 day+) lead time to ensure a good rate on the poster. Under 48 hour turnaround is possible, but costs the project more. You’ll get an email from John about where to pick it up when it’s ready.

It is also possible to get the poster printed at a commercial service but you’ll need to pay in advance and fill out some paperwork for reimbursement.

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