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updated 2/7//13
Authorization to Engage in Off-Site Activities
Overview
An Exchange Visitor in the Research Scholar and Short Term Scholar categories may find that the pursuit of Program objectives occasionally takes him or her off-campus. Remuneration or reimbursement for these activities is allowed under limited, specific criteria.
This page contains information about the authorization, and instructions about how to apply.
Forms needed by Stanford to process an off-site activity request:
- If you are the representative of a firm or institution planning to invite a Stanford Research Scholar to speak or lecture and you have been referred to this site, please complete this form.
- If you are the host of a Stanford Exchange Visitor in the Research Scholar category who seeks authorization to engage in an activity off-site, please prepare a letter using this template.
What Is Allowed By The Regulations?
The regulations currently permit Exchange Visitors in the Research Scholar and Short Term Scholar categories to "participate in occasional lectures and short-term consultations, unless disallowed by the sponsor. Such lectures and consultations must be incidental to the exchange visitor's primary program activities."
The scope of this authorization, as contemplated by the authors of the regulations, is intended to be quite narrow. Routine, part-time employment is definitely not comprehended by the authorization available to you from the Responsible Officers of the Stanford Exchange Visitor Program, despite what you may hear from colleagues, hosts or advisors. "Continuing" authorizations, valid for the term of your Program at Stanford, are not available; we will not consider proposals for off-site activities that appear to comprise employment.
Therefore, short-term consulting/independent contractor activities cannot be authorized if they exceed 3-4 hours per week and the duration of this off-site consultation cannot extend beyond a 2 month period.
As Responsible Officers for Stanford's Exchange Visitor Program designation, we administer the Program according to well-defined guidelines and regulations. These guidelines are not amenable to discussion or explanation; please do not attempt to coerce more latitude from our authority than we are prepared to grant.
If you are interested in working for a company, you should arrange with that employer to secure a change of status to an appropriate nonimmigrant classification. This has implications for your Stanford affiliation, of course, which you and your department will have to consider as part of a larger strategy that may or may not include concurrent employment at Stanford and elsewhere. Stanford is not responsible for H-1 or O-1 petitions that may be filed on your behalf by other employers.
Employment authorization for J1s in the Student categories (the J category is noted in section #4 of the DS-2019) does not apply to participants in the Research Scholar or Short-Term Scholar categories.
What Are The Criteria Used To Determine Whether An Activity Can Be Authorized?
Sponsors such as Stanford are permitted to authorize "occasional lectures and short-term consultations" for Research Scholars and Short Term Scholars if the circumstances of such arrangements meet three criteria:
- The subject matter of the event is directly related to the objectives of the exchange visitor's program;
- The scope of the event is incidental to the exchange visitor's primary program activities; and
- Participation in the event does not delay the completion date of the visitor's program.
What Is The Nature Of The Authorization?
A Responsible Officer of Stanford's Exchange Visitor Program will review the application materials. If the activity can be authorized, the Officer will provide an official authorization letter. The letter will detail the conditions and duration of the authorization and confirm that remuneration in the amount stipulated can be paid. (e.g., Dr. X is authorized to deliver a lecture on the subject of Y at University Z on the 15th of May, 2000 and receive a $1500 honorarium.)
Regulations stipulate that if remuneration is received by the exchange visitor for such activities, the exchange visitor must act as an independent contractor.
What Are The Procedures?
To obtain authorization to engage in occasional lectures or short-term consultations involving wages or other remuneration, the exchange visitor shall present to the responsible officer:
- A letter from the offeror setting forth the terms and conditions of the offer to lecture or consult, including the duration, number of hours, field or subject, amount of compensation, and description of such activity; and
- A letter from his or her department head or supervisor recommending such activity and explaining how it would enhance the exchange visitor's program.
The responsible officer shall review the letters required and make a written determination whether such activity is warranted and satisfies the regulations. If the activity is authorized, the Exchange Visitor is required by the regulations to act as an "independent contractor."
We have provided a form for the appropriate representative to fill out at the institution or company where the activities will take place. This form has the complete relevant citations from the Code of Federal Regulations (Title 8, Code of Federal Regulations Sec. 274a.5) for the representative's reference. Please do not substitute anything for this form.
Your Stanford faculty host must prepare a letter in this format, on Stanford department letterhead, as well. Again, we need your host's recommendation in a letter written according to this format. Please do not substitute anything for the letter prepared according to this format.
These are both Word 95/6.0 documents that can be completed on screen, or printed out and filled in by hand. Please make sure they are legible.
Examples Of What Can Be Authorized
- A Stanford Exchange Visitor who is a Short Term Scholar in a department is asked to give a lecture at Berkeley. She is paid an honorarium.
- A Stanford postdoc in the Research Scholar category is asked by a company on the East Coast to demonstrate a technique his lab has been using to achieve interesting results. The company pays the postdoc's airfare and three days' per diem, plus $500.
- A local company contracts with a Visiting Research Associate in the Research Scholar category to consult for a few days on a project. She presents an invoice to the company.
Examples Of What Cannot Be Authorized
- A local company offers a Stanford Research Associate who is in the J-1 Research Scholar category a job at eight hours per week. He is put on the payroll as a part-time employee. (Employees are not independent contractors; the position requires routine attendance; the activity may delay the Visitor's Program.)
- A postdoc in Electrical Engineering arranges with a community college to teach a course in Computer Science. (A teacher is not an independent contractor; the field is not directly related)
- A Research Associate signs a consulting contract of indefinite length. (The activity is not "incidental" to the Visitor's Program)
- A university offers to reimburse a postdoc for travel and other expenses or pay the postdoc for activities related to post-doc's job interview. (This cannot be authorized because the purpose of a job interview cannot be considered relevant to the J program objectives).
What If I Engaged In This Activity Before Getting Authorization?
Although J scholars should seek prior authorization for short-term off-site consultations and off-site lectures, occasionally scholars will need off-site authorization after the fact. If the consultation or lecture meets the requirements outlined above, i.e. it is a "normally approvable and appropriate activity" then, with the submission of the required documentation, the off-site activity can be submitted for authorization. However, in these cases, regulations require that approvals be accompanied by an "infraction" recorded on the scholar's SEVIS record.
What Do These Terms Mean?
"Directly Related" means that, for example, a lecture given by a Exchange Visitor Program participant will be on the subject of the Visitor's expertise, or that the consultation will be in the Visitor's discipline. This is, in fact, true of all activities in which an Exchange Visitor participates during his or her visit, including activities at Stanford. The State Department wants to emphasize that, whether at the host's site or elsewhere, the Visitor may engage only in activities that meet the description in Section 4 of the DS-2019.
"Incidental" means that the event represents a minor aspect of the Visitor's program, is conducted in "spare time," and does not remove the Visitor from his or her Stanford activities for more than a few days or so, exclusive of travel time. Any activity that requires routine attendance, or for which the Visitor is expected to report from time to time, is prohibited.
"Delay Completion" means that engaging in the work will cause the Visitor to request more time in the Exchange Visitor Program than would have been requested had the work not been engaged in. The concept goes hand in hand with the requirement that the event be "incidental" to the Visitor's program; by being incidental in nature, an event cannot be continuing or indefinite in term.
Title 22, Code of Federal Regulations 514.20(g)
"Occasional lectures or consultations. Professors and research scholars may participate in occasional lectures and short-term consultations, unless disallowed by the sponsor. Such lectures and consultations must be incidental to the exchange visitor's primary program activities. If wages or other remuneration are received by the exchange visitor for such activities, the exchange visitor must act as an independent contractor, as such term is defined in 8 CFR 274a.1(j)"
Title 8, Code of Federal Regulations 274a.1(j)
"The term independent contractor includes individuals or entities who carry on independent business, contract to do a piece of work according to their own means and methods, and are subject to control only as to results. Whether an individual or entity is an independent contractor, regardless of what the individual or entity calls itself, will be determined on a case-by-case basis. Factors to be considered in that determination include, but are not limited to, whether the individual or entity: supplies the tools or materials; makes services available to the general public; works for a number of clients at the same time; has an opportunity for profit or loss as a result of labor or services provided; invests in the facilities for work; directs the order or sequence in which the work is to be done and determines the hours during which the work is to be done. The use of labor or services of an independent contractor are subject to the restrictions in section 274A(a)(4) of the Act and Sec. 274a.5 of this part;"
Title 8, Code of Federal Regulations Sec. 274a.5
"Any person or entity who uses a contract, subcontract, or exchange entered into, renegotiated, or extended after November 6, 1986, to obtain the labor or services of an alien in the U.S. knowing that the alien is an unauthorized alien with respect to performing such labor or services, shall be considered to have hired the alien for employment in the U.S. in violation of section 274A(a)(1)(A) of the Act."
