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Stay abroad

PhD students at Aarhus University are required to participate in active research environments outside Aarhus University, and extended visits to collaborating research groups at other institutions or companies comprise an important part of the PhD education. PhD students are therefore strongly encouraged to go abroad for a period of at least three months as part of the PhD studies to gain experience outside our local environment. Usually, your supervisor helps establish contact to an institution of interest for your studies. If you need to apply for visa, please make sure to do so as early as possible. Expenses for visa and travel in connection with your stay abroad will be covered by the PhD expense pool.

Note that if your host pays you salary during your stay abroad, you must take leave from your PhD studies while you are away. If you wish to apply for an extension of your PhD studies, contact the PhD committee chair Anders Møller.

You can find useful information about stay abroad here.

Exemption from salaried work while abroad

You may be exempted from some of your salaried work without salary reduction (70 or 140 hours depending on the length of your stay abroad, as described in the Rules for salaried work. See also the GSNS quick guide on teaching exemption. On the below flow chart from the GSNS rules and regulations, you can see how the exemption is calculated.

Remember to apply for exemption by sending an email to your PhD partner including:

  • name of host institution
  • the exact period of your stay
  • approval of the stay abroad from your main supervisor 

Once approved, the hours you will be exempted for will be extracted from your teaching portfolio, and you must update your PhD plan.

Tax deduction

When staying abroad, you may be eligible to a tax deduction for "double housekeeping". See the rules at SKAT (in Danish). The amount is currently 25.000 DKK per calendar year (so it may make a difference if your stay spans two calendar years).

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