UKIODP Travel and Subsistence Guidance:

New Guidance for UKIODP Travel and Subsistence

*All of the guidance for travel, keeping receipts, etc… stays the same as previous and that general advice is copied at the bottom of this message.
**If you have a NERC employee record, then you are NERC employee.
***All students (not post-docs) should use the guidance for ‘non-NERC Employees’

NON-NERC Employees:

• From now on, anyone who has incurred T&S expenses will need to fill out the SSC ‘Non-Employee Expense Claim Form’.  You are not required to itemise expenses,simply fill in the ‘Total’ cost in GBP (Pounds).  Just fill in very basic information about your expenses e.g. dates, Exp. ### T&S. Ensure that you put in your digital signature. Also, as previous, please email me a cover letter summarizing expenses i.e. Reason for T&S, dates, summary of costs. 
• Once you have completed the form and written the covering letter, please email both to me (ukiodp@bgs.ac.uk) with the subject heading: ‘UKIODP expenses’
• We also must see receipts so please mail these to me at the below address, with a printed copy of the expense form for reference.
• Once I receive your form, covering letter, and receipts, I will then fill in the remaining project information and forward to SSC.

NERC Employees:

• NERC employees** need to submit their claim through SSC’s iExpenses.  For assistance with iExpenses, speak with your local accounts/finance staff.
• To complete the iExpenses process, you will need to know the project number and task number. For accounting purposes, I need to approve your claim prior to you submitting through iExpenses. To satisfy both of these points, I ask that you email me a covering letter explaining your expenses i.e. Reason for T&S, dates, summary of expenses and total. Email me at (ukiodp@bgs.ac.uk) with the subject heading: ‘UKIODP expenses - NERC Employee’. Do not send your receipts to me as you will need to submit them through iExpenses.
• Once I receive your cover letter, I will email you the project and task numbers so you can submit through iExpenses.
• Once you complete the iExpenses process, please email me a copy of the automated email that SSC sends out verifying your claim. I assume that everyone will be honest, but as I will never see your receipts the system appears vulnerable.  Please remember that I will see all expenditures against the project and I will check that this matches the sums quoted in your ‘cover letter’.  I’m not requiring you send me copies of receipts as you are already being inconvenienced by iExpenses.

*General UKIODP Travel and Subsistence Advice:

UK IODP funds every IODP Expedition participant for the following:

1. Travel and subsistence (including hotel) to join/depart ship
2. Travel and subsistence (including hotel) to the expedition sampling meeting (sub-sampling of cores used to take place onboard the vessel but now there is a separate sampling meeting within ~6months of the Expedition taking place)
3. Travel and subsistence (including hotel) to ONE post-cruise meeting. There are typically two post-cruise meetings. The first is the editorial meeting for the expedition proceedings, and generally only co-chief scientists are funded to attend this meeting. However, certain key scientists will be considered for T&S funding on a case by case basis as budgetary constraints will not allow every UK participant to attend the editorial meeting at College Station. For example, lead chapter authors on the ‘Proceedings’ volume will be considered. The most important post-cruise meeting is the 'science' post-cruise meeting which usually takes place 1-2 years post cruise and is attended by all expedition participants.  It is this meeting that the expedition scientists forge future collaborations and present results of any research they have carried out on expedition samples.

Unfortunately UKIODP participants must incur the costs of flights, hotel and subsistence (such as food) then claim these back from UKIODP. Please collect receipts as NERC operates an 'actuals' policy and does not apply per diem rates.  Please where possible travel as economically as possible, it is not IODP/NERC policy to fly business/first class!

If currency conversions need to be applied please do these as to insure you use the rate correct for the time the costs were incurred (please include the rate in your summary of expenses).  Otherwise I will simply use the current currency rate which may leave you out of pocket.

If you find it necessary, I can reimburse you prior to the meeting for any initial payments e.g. for hotels or flights, if this helps your personal finances.