How to Travel (preliminary info page)
Basics
Graduate students traveling for research or to conferences should not be paying for their own travel. In most cases your adviser's research grant should cover the expenses. The university and the department also have some funds to help students travel to meetings, summer schools, etc.
Reimbursable travel needs to be approved in advance. Generally, all business related travel expenses are covered, such as costs of transportation, lodging, meals, or conference registration fees. Apply for approval through the concur app at my.rutgers.edu.
Once you receive approval, plane tickets should be bought through concur or directly ordered through the approved travel agent. This might apply to train tickets as well. Rutgers expects you to choose the minimal cost alternative, such as economy class plane fares. Lodging can be set up through the travel agent, but exceptions are possible. Rental cars should be intermediate size or smaller, only reserved if needed, and also reserved through concur or the travel agent. Keep receipts for any expenses you have during travel; you will need to turn them in along with screenshots of the charges showing up on your credit card bills.
You are supposed to ask for reimbursement within 60 days of completing travel. If you are late, approving your reimbursement can require higher administrative levels of approval, which might not happen.
International Travel
Many students in the program travel internationally, for conferences and research as well as for personal reasons.
Domestic students who are not experienced in international travel should be aware that it can take a few months to obtain a passport, and visas are sometimes required for travel.
International students should check on what constraints they have due to their visas to come study in the U.S. Please contact Rutgers Global. Many students ask the GPD for a status letter in support of visa applications for their research / conference / personal travel.
Legal issues with students on international travel have arisen, particularly since COVID, leading to many univserities changing travel policies. It appears that travel to conferences is not a problem, but students with AY appointments plus summer support will not be allowed to travel during the summer for research -- they are supposed to work on campus.
Links
Related travel web pages include:
- The main Rutgers booking travel webpage, with information and links to other pages, is https://procurementservices.rutgers.edu/travel_and_expense/booking_travel.
- The department has a summary travel policy web page at https://my.physics.rutgers.edu/apps/travel/, but be warned that the travel system gets updated more often than the department directions.
- Travel approvals and reimbursements are done through the concur app. Log into my.rutgers.edu, choose the app icon, and then type concur into the search box to find it. For reimbursements, you will need various documents to upload (pdfs / images of receipts and credit card bills), as well as account (and task) numbers for the expenses to be charged to. Different expenses on the trip can be charged to different accounts. See also the procurement page about reporting expenses: https://procurementservices.rutgers.edu/travel-and-expense/reporting-travel-expenses. Don't forgot to attach your plane ticket charge to your reimbursement request.
