Travel Guidelines

Some general guidelines on conference / travel guidelines for PennLINC team members follow below. These are general guidelines (not inflexible rules); please contact Ted if further discussion is warranted.

As of 2024 PennLINC graduate students, post-docs, and senior scientists in good standing are entitled to $4k of funding for allowable academic travel per academic year (7/1 to 6/30). We no longer require that this travel be linked to a poster presentation or talk; we are all adult learners and I trust team members to evaluate what travel is most valuable for their development. To ensure transparency and equity in travle expenses, please log your expenses here as they are accrued.

PennLINC funds are in addition to any travel funds supplied by graduate groups (NGG), training grants (T32, K99), or otherwise. However, non-lab funds should be preferentially spent first before using limited lab funds. Note that certain workshops may not always count against this limit; please discuss these with Ted individually. Please note that international travel cannot be billed to federal grants except under special circumstances; thus international travel (usually, OHBM) merits additional discussion with me and is generally requires a higher bar in terms of conference fit and potential impact. Anyone proposing international travel to attend OHBM must apply for the travel award.

If you are presenting data at a conference, it is our strong preference that results should be in near-final form by time of presentation— i.e., the reported results in the abstract should be close what will appear in the paper. Note that potential reviewers often will be interested in the poster at a conference; it is poor form for results to change dramatically from the poster to the paper. We very much try to avoid a “rush for results” ahead of a conference deadline. Results should be solid and sent to co-authors a minimum of 7d ahead of the conference deadline; this allows for a minimum of 5d for co-authors to review results + two days to integrate feedback and receive final sign-off from Ted.

If you are presenting a poster, please use our lab template in Illustrator - either horizontal or vertical or any open source editor

As much as possible, all flights + hotels should be booked via Concur, which avoids carrying significant costs on your personal credit card. Please submit receipts immediately after the trip. Delayed submission can risk the ability to receive reimbursement due to strict university/federal regulations, which is a bureaucratic process. Any expenses not approved for reimbursement (even if submitted before!) within 6 months are NOT eligible for reimbursement. Reimbursement is via Concur; please see the Concur documentation and check the #Concur channel for details.

Conference travel is a privilege, and is dependent upon both funding and being a positive force for the community. This includes supporting colleagues in collaborative projects, testing software, writing documentation, and regular attendance at lab meetings & the seminar series.