Attending an International Conference: getting funding and visa

The past three months I spent a lot of my time and energy in an attempt to attend the scientific international conference 2007 MRS Fall Meeting, Boston, Mass. from 26-30 November, 2007. I learnt a lot in this process. I have decided to share my experience here as I am sure it will be of great benefit to research students in scientific fields in India.

The first and foremost step in this grand journey is arranging your funding for travel, accommodation and daily expenses. Other than applying to one's own institution/department a student may apply to Department of Science and Technology-Delhi, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Delhi, and Center for Cooperation in Science and Technology among Developing Societies-Chennai. Clicking these links will take you to the sites from where you can download the respective applications forms.

Some points to note are:
(1) You must have a copy of the invitation letter for attending the conference as it needs to be attached with all these application forms.
(2) You should start making efforts to get the original letter of invitation from the organizers as it may take time to reach you.
(3) As you only get partial assistance for traveling you should apply to different agencies simultaneously to cover all your expenses.
(4) These scientific agencies require that you apply at least 8 weeks in advance from the date of your conference.
(5) The sites say that you are likely to hear from them only 3-4 weeks before your likely date of departure. But I received a rather quick intimation from both DST and CCSTDS. Basically it depends on when the committees meet to take a decision on the various applications that they receive.

Once the applications are posted you can start working on getting cheap airline tickets and less expensive places of accommodation in the city where the conference will be held. You may make use of a travel agent for this purpose or check out the following websites: Orbitz.com, Priceline.com and Hotwire.com. I preferred to take help from NCL's official travel agent TCI. The advantage here is that a travel agent can block tickets for some weeks for which no payment is required. While if you were to do an e-booking on your own the airline will instantly deduct money from you account which may or may not be refundable.

Another very important step is getting the visa for the country you wish to travel to. In my case I needed a US visa. This involved a three step procedure: (a) payment of visa fees at HDFC Bank (b) after a gap of 2 working days allowing for processing of the fees fill an online form and secure a date for interview at the most suitable Consulate (c) submission of documents not less than 5 working days before your date of interview.

Do take note of the days on which the Applications Center and Consulate will be closed for calculating the number of working days correctly. For more details regarding the processing check out the following VFS-US website: http://www.vfs-usa.co.in/. This is the site you have to return to for filling the online form (i.e. step b).

At the day of your interview in the Consulate you should make sure that you carry all the necessary documents with you. Place labels so that you do not lose time when taking out whatever paper the Consulate Officer desires to see. Do remember to get a No Objection Certificate from your institute stating that the Head has nothing against your applying for a visa. You MUST HAVE IN ORIGINAL all proofs of the funding that you have secured. When I went the first time for an interview I had only partial funding and so the Officer raised an objection. According to him since I was going to attend a scientific conference I could not fund it from my own pocket eventhough I could afford it.

By the time I went for my second interview I had received ample funding to cover all my expenses. Despite that the Officer put the decision on my visa application on hold. It seems now even those going only to attend a scientific conference in the US have to fill the Technical Qualifications Questionnaire. The Mumbai US Consulate website (http://mumbai.usconsulate.gov/hitechbs.html) says that applicants should take a filled copy of this questionnaire, their biodata and copies of their publications along with them at the time of interview.

I unfortunately didn't know this last piece of information beforehand and hence I could not receive a decision on my US Visa application well in time. So after putting in all the efforts I had to cancel my trip to Boston. It was disappointing but that is how you gain experience which equips you for the future.