a.r.t.e.s. Travel Grants in the Integrated Track – A Guide
The a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School offers limited travel funding to doctoral candidates in the structured doctoral program (Integrated Track). These grants provide low-threshold support for doctoral students’ mobility and create valuable opportunities for academic exchange across institutional and national borders. By doing so, they contribute significantly to the internationalization of research, promoting professional and personal networking with scholars and research institutions both in Germany and abroad.
What is eligible for funding?
Research trips and – provided there is active participation (presentation, poster, etc.) – trips to conferences, workshops or summer schools in Germany and abroad. The event or research visit must be directly related to the doctoral project.
Trips to Cologne or trips to conferences/symposia at which no active contribution is made are not eligible for funding.
Important: Trips that do not originate in the Cologne area are only eligible for funding upon prior request.
Which (documented) expenses are eligible for reimbursement?
- Travel costs (bus, train, flight, etc.; in justified exceptional cases, taxi or similar); travel by private car upon request.
- Accommodation costs. In accordance with the travel expenses office’s guidelines, a maximum limit of €80 per night applies in Germany (varies individually abroad, see list). Accommodation costs exceeding the applicable limit may(!) be accepted on the basis of an individual justification.
- Visa fees
- Conference fees
Important: Receipts must be provided for all expenses. As a general rule, no meal allowances are granted and no daily allowances are paid.
Who is eligible to apply? And who is not?
Scholarship holders and collegiates on the Integrated Track are eligible to apply during their participation in the programme, which generally lasts three years, with the exception of collegiates employed in a
third-party-funded research project that provides travel funds for them.
After the expiry of the generally three-year period in the Integrated Track, funding will only remain available in exceptional cases and upon request.
What is the maximum amount of funding available?
Currently, a total of up to €750 per person can be claimed during the course of the Integrated Track, which generally lasts three years.
Higher amounts may be approved in exceptional cases, subject to a justified individual application and exclusively by the Executive Board of the Graduate School. This option is intended solely for research trips that are essential for the successful completion of the doctoral project and for which it can be demonstrated that no other funding has been secured.
→ Consequently, it is strongly recommended, particularly for costly travel plans, to seek other funding opportunities at an early stage, for example from the DAAD. (Please note the application deadlines!)
How does the application process work?
It is essential that you notify the Graduate School of your travel plans in advance by emailing artes-international@uni-koeln.de whilst you are still in the planning stage. This allows any outstanding questions to be clarified at an early stage, helps to avoid misunderstandings, and enables a general ‘approval of funding’ to be granted.
This advance notification should, firstly, contain the key details of the travel plans (What? When? Where? Why? Relevance to the PhD project?) and, secondly, a list – preferably in table form – of the (estimated) items for which reimbursement is sought.
The expense claim documents should then be submitted as soon as possible after the end of the trip.
Where should claims be submitted (depending on whether you were employed by the University of Cologne at the time of the trip)?
Case A: I am/was employed by the University of Cologne at the time of the trip (Please note: Scholarship recipients are not employees of the University.)
→ Standard reimbursement by the traveller via the University’s Travel Expenses Office. The provisions of the North Rhine-Westphalia State Travel Expenses Act and the guidelines of the Travel Expenses Office apply here. Among other things, a business travel authorisation is required in advance and, for trips abroad, a certificate of secondment is also necessary. It is also possible to make a payment in advance. Please note: the digital business travel management system Fiori is now available for travel expense claims.
Case B: I am not/was not employed by the University of Cologne at the time of the trip.
→ Claims via the ‘Travel Expenses for External Parties’ form through the Graduate School and the University’s Central Invoicing Office. On the form, you only need to complete the section containing the recipient’s details and the bank account information. (Do not sign!) The documents must then be submitted to the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School by email to artes-international@uni-koeln.de.
What documents are required?
1. In all cases, appropriate supporting documents are required for all expenses to be reimbursed (e.g. tickets, boarding passes, invoices, receipts, booking confirmations, proof of payment, bank statements, etc.). No receipts, no reimbursement! These must either (Case A) be submitted as part of the travel expense claim in the digital business travel management system or (Case B) sent to the Graduate School together with the form.
2. Regardless of whether Case A or Case B applies, additional documents must be submitted to the Graduate School:
For conferences/workshops/summer schools etc.: suitable proof of active participation (confirmation of attendance, event programme listing the presentation, or similar). In addition, the relevance of the event to your own research work should be outlined in a few sentences (in the email), particularly if this is not immediately apparent from the event’s topic or title.
For research trips, a short travel report of approximately one page should be submitted instead, emphasising in particular the relevance of the trip and its findings to the doctoral project.
Contact:
Florian Petersen
artes-international@uni-koeln.de