General instructions
1) All off-site missions (conferences/workshops, short research periods outside Pisa, long-term stays for research purposes) must be communicated to
2) For congresses or workshops, do not register yourself. If there is a registration fee, please complete the dedicated jotform https://form.jotform.com/251311552518046 well in advance of the registration payment deadline. The link to the form can also be found at https://www.dcci.unipi.it/form-online.html. Upon receipt of the request, and after due checks, the secretariat will contact you indicating the procedure to follow.
3) For both short or long term (>15 days) missions, except for participation in events taking place in the municipality of Pisa, you must complete, at least 10 days before departure, the mission authorization request and, on return, the mission reimbursement request on the U-Web missions portal https://start.unipi.it/missioni-fuori-sede/.
PhD students with a doctoral grant or research grant (Assegno di Ricerca) paid by UNIPI must click on ‘U-Web missions’, in all other cases click on ‘+Modules for those who cannot use the U-Web system’. Please refer to
3bis) For missions concerning research stays abroad exceeding 15 days, an authorization request must be opened on the aforementioned portal for the entire duration of the stay.
In the case of long stays, it is recommended to check the “co-financed” (cofinanziato) box. This allows you to submit additional mission requests during your stay (e.g., for attending events held at a different location from the research stay host institution). In this case, the departure location must be set as the foreign station up to the destination of interest. The reimbursement request can be submitted immediately after the end of that specific mission.
Please note that Article 2 of the University Mission Regulations states that “The mission has a maximum duration of two hundred and forty (240) days, beyond which expenses are not reimbursable.” If this circumstance arises, you must contact
Furthermore, Article 12-bis, paragraph 7 of the new University PhD Regulations states that “the scholarship increase for stays abroad and the personal budget are forms of financial support that can be combined with each other, even for the same purpose”. Therefore, it is possible to receive the 50% scholarship increase and, at the same time, use your own budget to reimburse other expenses related to the stay.
The provision of the DSCM Coordinator and/or the resolution of the Academic Board (Collegio dei Docenti) authorizing the research stay must be attached to the authorization request (see point 4).
4) For long-term missions abroad (>15 days), PhD students can request a +50% increase in their scholarship by following the instructions on the following page: https://www.unipi.it/didattica/corsi/dottorati/dottorandi/maggiorazione-della-borsa-di-studio-per-soggiorno-allestero/, which require uploading the emergency provision or the authorization resolution for the period abroad.
To be authorized and obtain the authorization resolution or the emergency provision to upload, you must send the request to carry out a research period abroad using this form to the address
Following approval by the Board or the Coordinator, the PhD student will receive the authorization resolution or emergency provision for the period abroad via email. Once the authorization is obtained, you must:
- log in to the Alice Portal with your credentials;
- select from the right-hand menu: “Segreteria” (Registrar) => “Carriera” (Career) => “Allegati carriera” (Career attachments);
- upload the Coordinator's emergency provision or the Board's resolution.
To obtain the scholarship increase, upon returning, you must upload the certificate issued by the host institution containing the details of the stay and the activities carried out onto the Alice Portal according to the following procedure:
select from the right-hand menu: “Segreteria” => “Carriera” => “Allegati carriera”
upload the certificate, issued on letterhead and signed by the head of the host institution, containing: the period of the stay (start and end dates) and the activities carried out. In case of an objective impossibility to produce such documentation, a declaration from the PhD student's supervisor must be submitted, certifying the period of stay at the host institution.
Payment is subject to the submission of the aforementioned certificate from the head of the host institution.
The scholarship increase is paid on the 30th of the month (together with the payment of the monthly scholarship installment), provided that the relevant documentation reaches the Office by the 15th of the same month. If the request arrives after the 15th, the payment will be issued on the 30th of the following month. In August and December, the deadline by which the documentation must be received is brought forward to the 1st of the month.
In case of long stays, intermediate payments are possible for periods already spent (not less than 30 days), always by submitting the relevant certificate from the host institution referring to the period for which the "intermediate" increase is requested.
5) After returning from missions involving expenses for which reimbursement is requested, complete the appropriate form on the missions portal and submit the originals of the receipts to the Budget Unit.
If an advance on expenses was requested at the time of the authorisation request, indicate the expenses already reimbursed as well as any new expenses. In the case of participation in congresses, always attach the certificate of attendance.
6) Expenses Documentation
Pursuant to Article 9 of the Rules for Off-site missions, the request for reimbursement of expenses under the analytical mission procedure must be accompanied by
▪ a valid tax document;
▪ proof of the payment in a traceable manner for expenses done in Italy. For missions abroad, electronic payment is not mandatory, but it is highly recommended, where possible. However, for cash expenses for which reimbursement is requested, the receipt must be submitted.
It is therefore deemed that the indication on the tax document of the electronic method of payment, where printed at the same time when the document was issued, is sufficient to prove the regularity of the same. The individual payment receipt to be attached to the tax document remains fully valid.
In exceptional cases of loss of the documentation proving the traceable expenditure, it will be possible to show the credit card statement accompanying the expenditure.
Particular attention is recommended in the case of expenses (especially accommodation) booked through portals (e.g. Booking, Airbnb, etc.): it is always essential that the booking payment, which is traceable in itself, is accompanied by an invoice or a receipt issued by the structure providing the service, in respect of which the platforms act as intermediaries.
Alternatively, it is also possible, provided that all the requirements of consistency and congruity are met, to reimburse documents issued by the platform as long as they are invoices and not simple bookings: it is therefore recommended that particular care be taken to ‘flag’ the invoicing menu when making bookings where it is not possible to acquire the document from the facility manager.
