Management meeting: Copenhagen, Denmark

The third MINSC management meeting took place in Copenhagen at First Hotel Esplanaden on June 17, 2013. This meeting revolved around an informal discussion of MINSC finances. Best practices for the costs of network meetings (group bookings versus individual bookings), secondments (how to deal with costs incurred by fellows on secondment, minimum /maximum durations of secondments) and use of the training budget were discussed. Questions from the PIs were fielded by the project manager, Clare Desplats. PIs also discussed the possibility of creating a special journal of MINSC publications and talked about how to finance such a venture.

PIs also asked for an explanation about the delays involved in reinvoicing partners following network events. Due to unforeseen circumstances in the finance office at Uni Leeds (unexpected resignations, maternity leave, etc), invoices for the meeting in Seefeld were not sent to partners promptly after the meeting. The finance office is once again working at full capacity and Uni Leeds hopes to invoice partners for both Seefeld and Copenhagen very shortly after the Copenhagen meeting.

All PIs were reminded to declare flat rates for category 3 of the MINSC budget on the first financial report and to ensure that this money is used for training of the fellows. A question concerning the the mobility allowance was addressed: Does this allowance change if fellows get married or have family after the start date of their contract? The answer is that this allowance is determined at the time of recruitment and does not change if family circumstances change after recruitment.

It was agreed by all PIs to revisit the issue of the costs of network meetings at the next meeting in Fuerteventura in February 2014.