Travel & Conference Fees

request your IMPRS funding

The IMPRS offers each of its doctoral students 1500 Eur allowance to be used for registration fees, travel and/or accommodation to conference attendance as deemed necessary by the student (and discussed with direct supervisor). As soon as you have decided how and when to use the allowance, you must request this in advance with the coordinator.

e. g. conference participation or learning methods in foreign lab. A detailed email needs be sent to the IMPRS office explaining, where, when and how much. Keep in mind, if early bird deadline or membership is required. You will need to wait for a reply, (dis)approval before proceeding, to be informed about how much remains, if you have started to spend it.

Keep in mind that if you are planning a private trip joined to the start or the end of the business trip, this cannot extend beyond five working days or else the IMPRS will not be able to refund you. Furthermore, proof that the actual cost of the travel tickets has to be the same or below the amount, if only the working period tickets would be purchased.

Method of payment: if only Pay-Pal or credit card are available then you need to make the payment in advance and request a refund. However, an elegant solution not to have to pay yourselves in advance is to put in a request with the Travel-Team for them to book your tickets/registration fees directly avoiding completely, the hassle of the refund process and the wait for the refund! Note that, if you travel abroad your refund process will likely take 3-4 months.

The Travel Team will of course require before any purchasing can be made: 

travel authorization, IMPRS authorization fund, itinerary (starting point and destination in full detail- time of day), when does the event start, passport copy or full name, tel # and email address :-)

Depending on where you have your contract (MPI or Un KN) will affect with whom you apply for your application for travel authorization and get this signed by your supervisors. Even to receive a refund from the IMPRS these needs to be received.

Note that the completion of TAC meetings and subsequent submission of the TAC forms to the coordinator’s office is required to occur in a timely fashion to be granted travel allowance.

Travel authorization forms:

Travel MPIAB (Intranet) / Travel form (university) / IMPRS-QBEE funding authorization

The essential preparation of „Business travel authorization forms“ are required when you are planning, e.g. fieldwork, attending conferences and seminars, meeting collaborateurs etc.

 

For insurance purposes, you have to fill in a ‚Business travel authorization form‘ before travel (link leads to document in MPIAB intranet) send it to your MPI-AB Department’s assistant (Sabine, Dago, Katrin) whether you are travelling for business purposes abroad or within Germany. No such form is needed when travelling between the institute’s premises of Konstanz and Radolfzell. 

If you are employed by the Uni KN, then you will need to fill in this travel authorization and submit it to the IMPRS travel support team to receive a refund (or before they are able to purchase your travel tickets).

When filling in the Uni KN form, make sure to tick the box for  “Dienstreise ohne Reisekostenvergütung" -Business trip without travel allowance and "sonstigen Mitteln"- other funds and add from IMPRS-QBEE graduate school.

In the case, if your own research group covers the cost of the daily allowance, then you could tick both boxes of Project-funding (add the IMPRS-QBEE) and `sonstigen Mitteln´- other funding and write `nur für Tagesgeld von hier zu belasten´ only for daily allowance to be paid and add the research groups’ account detail. -recommend to ask your supervisor about daily allowance option.

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When using an institute’s vehicle from the MPI-AB (only for employees) for a business purpose trip only, a business travel authorization form‘ signed by the supervisor is required as well. 

 

The Business travel authorization is required to:

*inform your supervisor who also has to sign for your financial reimbursement,

*to make sure you are properly insured,

*to prepare your official deployment abroad (Entsendung) which is taken care of by Human Resources (HR).