WHAT IS A 'MISSION'
When traveling for work within your Ph.D. program, your travels are technically called 'missions' and need to be approved beforehand.
The procedure is split into two parts: the mission authorization and the refund application.

AUTHORIZATION

All missions need to be agreed upon with your supervisor and a clear decision regarding the funds to be used to cover the mission expenses (transportation, housing, meals, registration, ...) must be made. Also, each mission needs to be notified/authorized by the doctoral program; unjustified absences are a possible cause of exclusion from the program. All this is reflected in the fact that, before each mission, you need to submit an online mission authorization form; the form, along with the information to insert, can be found on this page. Incorrect information inserted in the online mission request will cause the request to be rejected by the administration.
In case of missions longer than 20 days for the XXXVII series or 15 days since the XXXVIII series, which usually represent your visit abroad period, some additional steps are needed. The authorization is obtained upon approval of your visit plan by the doctoral program; once the visit plan is approved, you can submit the usual online mission request and also send a mandatory notification to the UNIPD office, called the mobility abroad authorization form. Missions longer than six months need to be approved by the BMCS Board, so their authorization needs to be submitted well in advance. Upon arrival at the host institution, you need to send to phd@unipd.it a statement that your activity abroad has started in the form of a letter on headed paper of the hosting institution mentioning the actual starting date and signed by your host supervisor abroad. Likewise, at the end of the entire period (preferably within the end of the month in which the period ends, and anyway within the 5th of the next month), a final declaration must be provided to phd@unipd.it, signed by the supervisor abroad, confirming the activity carried out, with explicit indication of actual beginning and ending date of the collaboration. This final statement is also asked in your annual activity report.
Every time you come back to Italy during the period abroad for festivities or any other reason, this must be communicated by email to phd@unipd.it and in the final statement. The suspension of the visit abroad must be motivated in written form: if the reason is with the hosting institution (e.g., closure), then you will need to have a letter from the hosting institution declaring the reason and the dates of your departure; if the reason is with you (e.g, some work duties) then you need a letter from the supervisor. Those letters need to be sent both to phd@unipd.it  (i.e., the UNIPD office) and to phd.BMCS@unipd.it (BMCS secretariat for insurance reasons).
Further visits during the period abroad need to be authorized by filling in the online mission request.

Please notice that all these authorizations and notifications are needed even if you are not applying for refunds or for a salary increase.

REFUNDS

To have your expenses refunded after your return, you need to keep the fiscal receipts documenting your expenses, scan them and attach them to the refund form. The refund form is available at the same link as the online request form. Please be advised that if receipts are issued in a form that is not suitable for refund application, you will not get your money back; thus, be sure to be informed before the purchase about the format they need to have by asking the administration office managing the funds (your supervisor will provide instructions about that).
According to the University mission regulation, eligible expenses for doctoral students are transportation, lodging, visa, and meals; if it is a scientific event, registration to the event is also an eligible expense, please get in touch with the secretariat to know if it can be anticipated. In order to have the expense refunded, the receipts need to include the date, amount, currency, and type of expense. Personal tickets must also include your name (e.g., plane tickets, conference registrations,...) Plane tickets must also be accompanied by boarding cards. Taxi is difficult to refund, and you need a convincing explanation; public transportation is preferable. Additionally, some expenses are not refunded if they exceed a given amount. Train: 2nd class only, Plane: Economic class only, Hotel: € 130,00 per day Meals: Missions lasting 4 to 8 hours: € 50,00 a day Missions lasting longer than 8 hours: € 100,00 a day.
A salary increase of 50% is acknowledged in case of an authorized visit abroad longer than 20 days, calculated on the exact number of days spent abroad. Most travel refunds and the 50% increase of your monthly grant (in case of visits longer than 20 days) will be transferred starting with the end of the first month. It is wise to have some savings to cover the initial expenses before the refund comes. Some expenses can also be refunded before starting the mission (travel expenses etc).
Other rules/budgets might apply to different sources of funding (e.g., CSC, MSCA); for example, CSC grants do not include the 50% increase, which is covered by the supervisor's funds. If you have doubts, please ask for clarifications beforehand to the administration office managing the funds or the secretariat of the doctoral program.

OTHER EXPENSES

The individual fund each doctoral student is endowed with (the so-called "research budget") covers only a certain type of expenses: missions, course fees licenses. The purchase of equipment is not covered by individual doctoral student funds. For mission refunds, see above. For course refund (in case you are planning to take any school/seminar/class that requires a fee) please get in touch with the administration office before the payment to make sure that it is eligible for refund.

HEALTH ASSISTANCE

Health assistance is not covered by UNIPD. Within the UE, it is covered by the TEAM card. Outside the EU, it is recommended to buy insurance to cover health assistance during the mission period.