NEW - Updated user travel rules and e-travel application

The following information is not relevant for proprietary research experiments or private CRG experiments, it only applies to use of public beam time.

New travel rules

During 2019, the ESRF updated its travel rules for users, with the primary objectives being to reduce the carbon footprint related to user travel by encouraging the use of remote access whenever this is possible, and to prepare for the expected increased throughput in user experiments thanks to the faster and shorter experiments that the new EBS source will bring.

The updated travel rules have been approved by Management and are available on our "ESRF User Policies and Rules" web pages.

We invite you to read carefully and take note of the new rules. The main changes include :

• reinforcement of the use of public transport rather than private/rental cars and taxis,
• reinforcement of the definition of the journey to be reimbursed (home laboratory to/from ESRF)
• alignment of all experiments to the same limit of up to 3 reimbursed users (or parcels/dewars for remote and mail-in experiments), with the only exceptions being Long Term Proposal and red experiments (4 users/parcels/dewars) and Cryo-EM experiments (2 users/parcels/dewars).
• introduction of the notion of offline experiments, where user presence is required at a time before or after the X-ray experiment for an integral part of the experiment as described in the proposal form - in this case, 1 user will be reimbursed
• introduction of financial penalties to ensure the timely reservation of tickets - please read this section (22.6) carefully to avoid unwelcome surprises ⁽¹⁾
• obligatory reservation of tickets via the ESRF Travel Office for reimbursed users, using ESRF's new e-travel application SAP Concur
• payment of the Guesthouse room by any local users housed at the Guesthouse (only possible if rooms are available after all other users have been housed), since accommodation for local users is not subsidised by the ESRF
• reinforcement of the maximum duration of the stay in the Guesthouse to the experiment duration + 3days - a special request and authorisation will be needed for any extension, and additional costs must be borne by the user.

⁽¹⁾ Due to the extremely difficult international travel situation at the moment as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the application of financial penalties for late submission of the user travel requests is suspended until further notice.

New e-travel application - SAP Concur

Starting from March 2021, a new e-travel software called 'SAP Concur' will be launched at the ESRF. All reimbursed users will be required to submit a travel request to define the travel arrangements before the trip, and request either online booking or booking through the Travel Office. This will ensure that tickets are purchased at the best rates, and that users are aware of the level of reimbursement before making the trip.

Travel requests will no longer be made by the Main Proposer via the A-Form. Each user listed by the Main Proposer on the A-Form will have to fill in his/her own travel request via the SAP Concur application. This application can be used to make both online and offline bookings, and will allow the upload of electronic expense receipts via a smartphone application.

More details can be found here

Several video tutorials have been created to help you fill out your travel request - we recommend that you watch these videos carefully and leave plenty of time when creating your first travel plan to become familiar with the software and with its features.