This page documents the guidelines for reimbursement of participant travel expenses which are being covered by the HSF-India project. Please read carefully the entire document, including both the general guidelines and any event- or workshop-specific instructions described at the end of this page. Additional instructions or limitations for reimbursement may also have been included in any email you received informing you that your travel is eligible for reimbursement from the HSF-India project.

General Guidelines for Reimbursement of Travel Expenses

Reimbursement will be provided for travel expenses for participants, up to a specified limit, upon presentation of valid receipts. The following guidelines apply:

• Participants should plan on traveling on dates agreed with the HSF-India project for a particular event. These will be documented in “Notes for specific events and workshops” section of this webpage or specified in email from a designated representative of the HSF-India project.
• Travelers should pay for their travel themselves and will be reimbursed up to the specified limits after the meeting/training event has concluded.
• The reimbursement can be done by check or bank transfer, typically within 5-10 business days from submission and approval of the required documentation.
• Only the traveler can be directly reimbursed (not the traveler’s research group).
• Reimbursed travel should use the least expensive options possible, which reasonably meet normal travel time constraints.
• Reimbursed travel should be booked in regular, economy fares. No business class or paid economy class upgrades can be reimbursed. In cases where airlines offer “economy basic” or similar discounted fares, with limitations on carry-on baggage or similar, it is fine to choose the “regular” economy fare permitting baggage.
• For participants flying from outside the U.S., air flights can only be reimbursed if the carrier is allowed by the Fly America Act and U.S. Open Skies agreements and normally reimbursable with U.S. government (NSF) sponsored research funds.
• For long distance ground travel in US/Europe, mass transportation (train, bus) is preferred to long distance taxi. Uber is recommended in India.
• Receipts should be provided in electronic form (scanned or clear photos), preferably grouped together into a single pdf file.
• The form(s) for reimbursement are linked below. This should in general be filled out by one week after the end of the event itself and submitted along with the electronic copy of the receipts described above.

If you have any questions or doubts about travel reimbursement please send an email with your travel plan to david.lange@cern.ch before booking to get confirmation on reimbursement.

Forms for reimbursement

There are two relevant forms for travel reimbursement:

• Guest Reimbursement Request - Everyone requesting travel reimbursement must fill out this form
• Supplier Onboarding Form for foreign participants and is required for all non-US based participants.
• Supplier Onboarding Form for US-based participants Only US-based folks requesting reimbursement via wire transfer need to fill out this form. If you would like to receive a check, this form is not needed (we find that receiving a check is simplest/fastest)

For the supplier onboarding form:

• Leave section 3 blank
• Sign and date page 2

For the guest reimbursement form:

• Fill out “Today’s date” in the upper right hand corner of the form
• Fill out your name, address and business phone
• Specify the departure and return date from your trip to the school (please use MM/DD/YY format)
• Specify the city, state and country where the event was located for the “Destination”
• Business purpose: “To participate in the HSF-India workshop on research software held at fill-in-location, fill-in-dates”
• Fill out the list of expenses as appropriate. Include the date (in MM/DD/YY format), a short description of the type of expense and the amount in U.S. Dollars.
• “per diem” can not be paid per policy. Instead, please list a single line on the expense form called “Meals (combined, breakout attached)”, and then attach a breakout of rough costs per meal as a separate google doc or PDF document (use dollars for these estimates to save effort). Here is a template to start fromFollowing our group policy, there is a limit of $50 per day, but as in general some meals are provided (and paid by our grant or by your host) this should not be a big problem. Questions, ask me.
• If you paid an expense in something other than U.S. Dollars, look up the exchange rate (corresponding to the date of the expense!) on some online service and make a screenshot of the rate (including the date). For example you can make a pdf of this link and include it in your receipts. Put the equivalent U.S. Dollar cost in the form in the “Amount” column and include the amount in the foreign currency (with label such as CHF, EUR) in parentheses in the item “Description”. (Note that the administration may adjust the conversion amount if the wrong rate or date is used, but lets try to save them the trouble.)
• Add your name, date and signature at the bottom of the form.
• Make a readable scan or clear photo of all relevant receipts for the expenses to be reimbursed. Please merge these receipts into a single file.

Checklist for avoiding common mistakes:

• Did you sign and date the forms?
• Did you use day by day INR to USD conversion factors and document them?
• Did you break down meals as requested above?
• Did you provide your address and/or bank information so that we can pay you?

These forms can be filled out and signed electronically. After completing and checking them, use this google form to upload all documents and to make your request for reimbursement.