Travel

Before you travel

• Finalize your Field Activity Safety Plan and send it to the Northern Research Committee Chair for review and signature (or get it signed by your Department Chair).
• If you have large out-of-pocket expenses (e.g., a plane ticket), you may apply for a travel advance through the Carleton travel and expense reimbursement web site (follow the steps below for a travel expense claim, but complete a travel advance instead).

After you travel

There are 3 common scenarios:

A) Your supervisor (or someone else from your research group) paid for your expenses and claimed them already on your supervisor’s fund.

1. Ask your supervisor to send the Northern Research Committee Chair an email with the travel expense report number, the total amount claimed, and the fund/org number that the expenses were claimed to, to initiate transfer.

B) You paid your own travel expenses and your supervisor has a fund that you can claim these to. 

1. Get an account on the Carleton travel and expense reimbursement system (http://carleton.ca/facts/travel), if you don’t already have one.
2. Be sure to specify your thesis supervisor as your ‘supervisor’ in the travel system.
3. Claim your expenses to the six-digit fund number and three-digit org number your supervisor tells you to.
4. Make sure that you write in the travel claim comments that: “This claim is associated with NSTP-funded field research”.
5. Submit your claim for approval.
6. After it goes through, ask your supervisor to send the Northern Research Committee Chair an email with the travel expense report number, the total amount claimed, and the fund/org number that the expenses were claimed to, to initiate transfer.

C) You paid your own travel expenses and your supervisor does NOT have a fund that you can claim these to. 

1. Send an email to the Northern Research Committee Chair to request that you be allowed to claim directly to the NSTP fund (include your student number).
2. Get an account on the Carleton travel and expense reimbursement system (http://carleton.ca/facts/travel), if you don’t already have one.
3. Be sure to specify your thesis supervisor as your ‘supervisor’ in the travel system.
4. Claim NSTP-eligible expenses up to your allocation amount to fund 301000/370 (this will only be possible if you have been given access — see step 1).
5. Submit your claim for approval.

Getting help with SAP Concur

• The travel/expense reimbursement system has excellent how-to guides and an FAQ here.

Notes for supervisors

• Option A and B are the most flexible and advantageous to you (strongly recommended).
• If you are opting for A or B, please ensure that travel claims have NSTP-eligible expenses (see below) that equal your student’s current NSTP funding allocation (and preferably exceed it by a healthy margin, since this will take full advantage of tax rebates and makes it easy to move more expenses should NSTP allocations increase). 
• If your research fund has a low balance, Research Accounting will allow your student to overspend it up to the NSTP funding allocation amount (Please notify your Financial Administrator and the Northern Research Committee Chair, if this is required).

Eligible expenses

Please keep in mind that NSTP is meant to supplement other sources of funding. NSTP funds are to assist in defraying the additional costs attributable to northern research projects:

• transportation costs
• living expenses
• freight costs
• interpreter fees

The following are not eligible:

• research outside the NSTP’s geographical boundary;
• research unrelated to your thesis;
• student employment or field courses;
• research that does not require a sojourn in the North;
• field assistants;
• purchase of equipment;
• payment of salaries other than interpreters and community experts/elders engaged in the research project; and,
• for timelines beyond that which NSTP allocates according to degree program (i.e. 1 year for thesis-based undergraduate research; 2 years for thesis-based Master’s research; and 3 years for thesis-based Doctoral research).

For more information on eligible expenses, please consult the funding/eligibility section in the NSTP Information Manual.