For folks traveling to AGU & wanting to include personal travel, please know that the overall expectation for business travel is that folks are traveling round-trip and returning to their home location. (This goes for all travel, not just for travel to AGU.)
CIRES employees may include personal travel as long as they can demonstrate that the personal travel does not result in increased costs to the grant, CIRES, state of Colorado, or other funding source, and when the personal component of such travel does not create the appearance of being the dominant aspect of the trip.
We have many people who travel to AGU and the CIRES Travel team has received some requests from folks who want to continue on with personal travel immediately after the AGU meeting through the end of the calendar year and/or to accommodate holiday travel.
The AGU meeting ends on December 13th. If you are planning to continue your travels through the end of the calendar year or for holiday travel, and your personal travel days exceed the number of business days required to travel for the AGU meeting, the majority of the trip ultimately serves a personal purpose and becomes the dominant/majority aspect of the travel. In these instances, CIRES funds may only be used to support approved business travel costs during the business portion of the trip. Such costs can include per-diem, local transportation, lodging, etc., but CIRES will not cover airfare to or from the location of the business activity; these costs are the responsibility of the traveler.
If your business travel interferes with personal travel that you have already pre-planned (i.e., the business travel comes up unexpectedly/last-minute and you have already booked airfare for your personal travel), please email the CIRES Travel team so that we can determine the best path forward. We assume this circumstance will come up infrequently.
CIRES and the University of Colorado are stewards of federal research funds. It is our responsibility to ensure we follow all federal and institutional policies when spending these funds. We are responsible for adhering to the University Cost Principles Policy which states that all costs need to be allocable, allowable, reasonable and provide direct benefit to the project.
It is CIRES’ determination that it is reasonable that someone could include up to the same number of personal days on a trip as the number of business days required to conduct the business activity. Conversely, it is CIRES’ determination that it is unreasonable that someone would travel for business for 1 week and then take 2+ weeks of personal travel without assuming the cost of airfare.
Please see our full personal travel policy on InsideCIRES.
