Reimbursement culture needs to end

When I attended my first international conference, I was a PhD student. Two months before it started, I’d already paid nearly £1000 out of my own pocket for conference fees, hotels and flights. At the conference, I also had to cover the cost of transport, food and drink. I was reimbursed for the conference fees shortly after paying them, but I had to wait until after I’d returned from the trip to get the rest of my money back. I was fortunate; I could afford it.

By the time I attended my second international conference, I’d left academia for a job in publishing. My employer paid directly for my fees, flights and accommodation. And although I still paid and then reclaimed my at-conference costs, that was my choice – my employer would have supplied me with cash to cover those expenses if I had wanted it. After all, the reasoning went, I was travelling on work business so I should not be left out of pocket.

It’s difficult to justify why such a disparity exists. It’s not that funders and institutions don’t think that conference trips are worth paying for – after all, they cover the costs eventually. (Or at least most of them – if researchers go into debt to travel, the resulting interest payments or overdraft fees incurred are rarely, if ever, reimbursed.) And with more academic institutions implementing schemes that cover at least some upfront costs, arguments that delayed repayment is necessary don’t hold much weight.