What is meant by "guest"?

I’d like to invite an external collaborator. What do I have to do?

 Everything you need to know about guests

Annexes list for guests

What is meant by "guest"?

A guest, or external collaborator, is any person who is employed by any other institution but the University of Trieste and who occasionally visits the Department and its branches during an institutional visit for research and educational purposes. For example, guests are seminar holders and visiting scientists as indicated in the University regulations (ITA).

If you’d like to host a guest, please contact:

Ottavia Umani (room 128) – ottavia.umani@units.it

Irene Spagnul (room 124) – ispagnul@units.it

Melissa Amati (room 124) – mamati@units.it

There's no specific email address for this activity and each of the aforementioned people is simultaneously doing other administrative tasks. Therefore, requests must be presented with an advance of at least 2-3 months before the activity you are intended to do with your guest. Guest’s reputation must be taken into consideration for the advance which you’ll inform the above-mentioned people with.

I’d like to invite an external collaborator. What do I have to do?

Here are the steps you need to follow:

Step 1. Submit your request

Write a letter to the Department Director indicating the following details:

• name and surname of your guest;
• institution and country of origin;
• purpose of the activity (research or education) and type of activity;
• period of your guest’s stay;
• scientific reasons and potential relations with Department research projects
• potential buildings the guest will need to access (e.g., Elettra, ICTP...)
• in the event of reward payments, refunds or purchases, please write the envisaged total sum of expenditures

Annexes:

Guest request

Step 2. Invitation letter and guest’s email address

Please tell us your guest’s email address. We will write their invitation letter (in Italian or in English), in which we will illustrate the terms of collaboration and indicate some useful contacts for their support and information (reward payment, fiscal declarations, …)

Annexes:

Invitation letter

Step 3. Organising the visit and administrative management

Each professor is the organisational supervisor, responsible and reference point of each guest. On our part, we will focus entirely on administrative management, which will require your and your guest’s signs.

If needed, we will keep in contact with guests to organise their visit and we are available to help them in filling out fiscal forms.

Please see the dedicated page and write to acquisti.df@units.it for booking the travel and the stay.

Annexes:

Task appointment

Other tasks declaration

Conflict of interest declaration

News sheet

Access to facilities

Debit note (ENG)

Everything you need to know about guests

May I pay or financially support my guest?

Your guest can take part in the activity either free or being paid with:

• a reward payment;
• a lump sum refund;
• a calculation-based refund.

The choice is made by the professor who supervises the activity included in the collaboration and who usually possesses the resources to support the guest.

If a payment is chosen, whatever the form it is, the guest is considered as occasional freelance collaborator because he/she is a person external to the University, who non-continuously participates in our activities.

Another possible choice of support is the payment of costs in advance by the Department, which purchases the necessary service directly from the suppliers. With this choice, the guest doesn’t need a task appointment of collaboration (conferimento di incarico). However, advance costs are limited and usually allocated for journey and stay, whereas meals and local public transportation require a refund in any way (which require the Italian fiscal code; foreign guests must pay attention to this detail).

For this kind of support, please see the Department of Physics regulations for purchases.

Refunds cannot be requested via Business trips.

WARNING! Even in the case of advance costs, if the guest receives reward payments or refunds, he/she will have to obtain a task appointment. The two procedures are not exclusive.

How much to pay a guest?

There’s neither a fixed sum nor law-prescribed directions.

The total sum of money is decided by the two parties considering either available Department funds or conditions that are imposed by potential sponsors. Upon request, administrative offices can carry out a statistic based on previous events.

Tip: in case of lump sum refund, we strongly recommend to determine an amount of money that can cover the guest’s main expenditures.

Reward payment, lump sum refund and calculation-based refund: what are the differences?

By reward payment we mean an all-inclusive total sum of money, which is determined by the type of the activity as if it were the case of an employee’s salary. Therefore, this amount of money belongs to law-taxed incomes.

A lump sum refund is an all-inclusive amount of money which is given to support expenditures due to the activity execution. This amount is fixed, and it doesn’t exactly correspond to guest’s actual spending. Hence, the guest doesn’t need to submit any document to demonstrate their costs. However, according to the law, this total sum is taxed because it is compared to an income.

Annexes list for guests