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The Office of Contracts and Grants (OCG) staff have the opportunity to attend a variety of conferences, including research administration professional associations, professional development conferences and meetings, workshops, meetings for associations such as FDP and COGR.

Attendance at in-person or virtual professional association and professional development conferences and meetings requires an OCG conference application. Meetings for associations and IMURA are attended by members of senior leadership, as determined by the Director, and do not require an application (note that our FDP membership requires meeting attendance).

Conference applications are reviewed three times annually to manage a limited travel budget and track conference travel among OCG staff.

OCG’s conference attendance decisions recognize that involvement in professional associations as an officer, committee member, and presenter is best supported if staff can attend meetings and conferences on an annual basis while balancing efforts to encourage new professional association members to get involved and attend meetings.

Note: If you intend to propose a presentation for a professional association meeting, it is recommended to discuss your plans, attendance at the meeting, and application timeline with your supervisor. Your supervisor can help determine which deadline to submit an OCG Conference Application.

Application Deadlines

Generally the timeframe for deadlines are:

Process

Staff should complete the conference application and submit to their supervisor.

The supervisor will recommend or not recommend the application and note on the form the reason. Applications, whether recommended or not, are forwarded to the Director. If a supervisor does not recommend attendance for conference travel, they will meet with the employee and review the reasons for not recommending the application.

The Director will review all forwarded applications for final approval.

Review Considerations

OCG offers up to15 slots per fiscal year, depending on available budget, for OCG staff to attend conferences and meetings. The Director’s travel as well as travel to FDP, COGR, and IMURA are excluded from these slots.

Of the available slots, priority is given in the following order:

1. Professional Association Officers and Committee Members
2. Presenters, current CRA and need for CRA contact hours, professional association award recipients (up to 8 of the 15 slots)
3. New attendees/have not attended in a year (remaining slots)

Slots are filled on a first-come first-serve basis with applications accepted during our conference application timelines. OCG maintains a spreadsheet of conference attendance approvals in OCG Teams > General.

The supervisor review and the final review  also take into consideration the following criteria:

• Employee has been with OCG for a minimum of one year (exceptions may be made for new OCG employees with a history of research administration professional association involvement)
• Past performance
• Involvement with professional associations, including volunteer activity at conferences
• Distribution of slots across teams to ensure that each team has opportunities for members to attend meetings and bring back information relevant to their team
• OCG budget limitations
• Staffing implications

After final review, all applicants will be notified both in writing and in-person of their application status.

Expectations for Approved Conference Travel

Approval for conference attendance includes the following expectations for the employee to:

• Consult with the Senior Training and Development Program Manager after travel has been approved to discuss preparations and practice of their presentation, if they are speaking at the event, or guidance on how to get the most out of the conference.
• While attending the conference, provide some volunteer service to the professional organization. The Senior Training and Development Program Manager will assist employees with identifying these opportunities.
• Upon returning from the workshop, conference or meeting, employee will schedule time to meet with the Senior Training and Development Program Manager as well as their supervisor to discuss the information disseminated at the event and determine how the information, tools or materials from the conference will be shared with OCG. 

Approved Conference Registrations that include Travel

1. Register for the conference using your Travel card.
2. Flights should be purchased through Concur.
3. If you need a refresher on Travel procedures, please see the .
4. Reconcile travel purchases once you return from the conference.
5. Let Jessica Trowbridge know if you need any assistance.

Virtual Conference Registrations

1. The employee's manager must obtain approval from Alexa for the employee to attend a virtual conference.
2. Once approved, the manager will forward the approval to Jessica Trowbridge.
3. Jessica T. will reach out to the employee regarding the approval.
4. If it is a basic registration (name and email address), Jessica will sign the employee up and send a confirmation once completed.
5. If the registration requires detailed information, the employee fills out the registration information and reaches out to Jessica on Teams in order for her to provide the P-Card information.