Request for foreign travel pre-approval.

Request for foreign travel pre-approval.

If you are requesting to go on foreign travel funded by LCLS Operations, you need to get pre-approval from your LCLS Division Leader first.

For foreign conference attendance, you must also get pre-approval from the LCLS Director, Mike Dunne. This helps ensure timely DOE approval and coordination among multiple attendees for the same conference.

After receiving these approvals, you can submit your foreign travel request in Concur.

This requirement applies to both LCLS staff and anyone else using LCLS Operations Funds.

For full LCLS Foreign Travel Guidance, please see here.

For questions about this form or the status of your request, please contact: samira@slac.stanford.edu.

Traveler Information

Last Name*

First Name*

SLAC email*

Directorate*

Select or enter value

LCLS Division*

Travel pre-approval will be directed to the Division Leader.

Note: for Mike's direct reports: Choose 'LCLS Senior Leadership' instead of your administrative division to ensure your request goes to Mike.

Select or enter value

Travel Details

Trip Purpose*

Review the guidance below to help you accurately select the trip purpose.

Conference: Any event with a website and registration fee (DOE likely considers these events as conferences). This category includes both large gatherings with sessions, keynotes, and significant attendee engagement, as well as smaller focused gatherings such as workshops.

Meeting: For advisory committee meetings, proposal review meetings, or structured external gatherings such as strategic planning meetings, partnership meetings, and collaborative discussions.

Training: Select both training and conference for summer schools, skill development workshops, and courses or formal training sessions provided by external organizations if a registration fee applies.

Beamtime: Scheduled time for conducting experiments at external facilities.

Note: More than one option may apply. For instance, summer schools can be seen as both training and conference. If uncertain, default to selecting "Conference" for events with a website and registration fee according to DOE considerations.

Select or enter value

Country of Destination*

Select or enter value

Departure Date*

Return Date*

Detailed Itinerary*

Include dates of key meetings, events, etc.

Personal Travel*

Will your trip include any personal travel?

Note: In general, DOE discourages personal travel before/after a conference, to avoid the perception of misuse of taxpayer money.

Select

Personal Days*

Please specify the number of days you are requesting for personal travel.

Travel Justification

Justification*

Please describe the objectives of the trip, the relevance to current LCLS projects or goals, and the expected benefits to LCLS/DOE.

Review the guidance below to help strengthen your statements.

Purpose: Clearly outline the activities you plan to undertake (e.g., participating in a review, delivering a talk) without focusing on their benefits. Highlight whether your talk/participation is “invited” – and include the website that lists your name, if available. This section should address the “what,” not the “why.”

Benefit: Use this section to briefly explain the value of your travel. Since the “Benefit” section often receives more attention than the “Purpose,” it’s helpful to restate your planned activities here as context. Begin by highlighting the importance of the event, such as its scope, prominence, or the caliber of attendees. When possible, mention other participating institutions or notable attendees. Consider including the following benefits:

Learning: Gaining specific research insights, understanding strategic directions, or staying informed on new developments.

Networking: Engaging with potential collaborators who can support our facility or user program’s success.

Facility: Presentation of results that help attract new users/staff to SLAC/DOE, or that could prompt new collaborations to address DOE priority topics (such as LCLS facility development)

Insight: Learning about the operations and results from other facilities or understanding user expectations.

Exploring Opportunities: Discussing future funding opportunities, initiating new projects, etc.

Feedback: Receiving input on presented results to refine future research.

Promotion: Supporting recruitment efforts by showcasing research outcomes and our facility's strengths.

Note: Avoid including activities that don’t directly benefit the government, like teaching others or broadly promoting achievements, unless they support recruitment or expand our user base in a way that benefits domestic users.

Conference Info

Conference Name*

Conference Role*

Select or enter value

Conference Start Date*

Conference End Date*

Conference URL*

File Upload

If no conference website exists, upload any information you have pertaining to this conference. Eg. email invite, or agenda.

Drag and drop files here or

Funding Source

Funding Source*

Select or enter value

Send me a copy of my responses

Privacy Notice|Report Abuse