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. The approval of non-US-based participants may take 1 month or more (but can be started ahead of time).
• 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 will complete this form. However our system will do this mostly for you (see below)
• 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

To help complete the guest reimbursement form:

• You should receive an email from us (most likely from David Lange) with 1) a google doc to complete and 2) an online form to upload your receipts to.
• The Google doc has four tables. One for information about the trip and HSF-India event; one to list individual meal expenses; one to list individual transportation expenses (ubers, taxis, etc); and one for other expenses (flights, visas, esims etc). Complete these tables based on actual expenses and gather your receipts only for expenses greater than 50 USD. Use the actual currency for each meal/form of transport.
• Please use MM/DD or MM/DD/YYYY format for dates
• “per diem” can not be paid per policy and instead we require a list of meals to be reimbursed according to (rough) actual costs. Lists with rounded or repeated numbers may also be flagged and rejected. As in any case, meals are typically provided either via hotel bookings or by the event itself, this list is not expected to be very complicated. Following 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.
• Once the google doc is complete, please upload your receipts (and onboarding form if needed) via the online form provided by us. Once reviewed, a completed copy of the guest reimbursement form will be mailed to you for your confirmation and signature. Please return it to us via email.