Absence
Family Leave
If you become pregnant such that the expected date of confinement will occur during the period of your award, you are entitled to 52 weeks of maternity or shared parental leave. In the case of maternity leave, the first 26 weeks will be paid at the full stipend rate. The following 13 weeks will be paid at a level commensurate with employee entitlements to statutory maternity pay. The final 13 weeks are not paid. When you return to your studies, you will resume your studentship with the same amount of paid time remaining as when you left and your submission deadline will shift to reflect your leave period.
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Due to the structured nature of most taught research training programmes (Masters Programmes), students who take maternity leave during any research training programme are expected to re-join their course at the stage at which they left it, ie. in order to ensure that all elements of the training are successfully completed in advance of their doctoral study. This may require taking a full 52 weeks of maternity leave but this would depend on the structure of the course and the frequency in which training is provided. Applications for and queries about maternity leave should be directed to the LISS DTP Team and your Institutional/Departmental Administrators and your supervisor should be informed. Your maternity leave application must be supported by a MAT B1 form.
Partners are entitled to up to 10 days paid Ordinary Partner’s or Paternity Leave on full stipend.
Partners may be entitled to up to 50 weeks of Shared Parental Leave; this may include paid and unpaid leave (dependent on the amount of leave being claimed by your partner). Any paid leave will be at full stipend. Circumstances of shared parental leave should be discussed with the LISS DTP team.
There is no qualifying period for maternity, paternity, adoption or shared parental leave.
UKRI also supports other types of family leave e.g. Adoption Leave and Neonatal Care Leave.
Please contact the LISS DTP Team at liss-dtp@kcl.ac.uk for more information.
Medical Leave
If you fall ill or have a planned medical procedure the implications for your studentship are dependent on the length of time you expect to be unable to work.
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If you are ill for less than one month, your stipend and funding end date, and submission date are not affected. There is no need to inform LISS DTP.
If you are ill for between 5 and 28 weeks, then your stipend payments can continue if covered by medical certificates for up to 28 weeks, within any rolling 12 month period. The total cumulative amount of medical leave must not exceed 52 weeks across the whole studentship. (Please send certificates to the LISS DTP Team.)
You will have up to 28 weeks of additional stipend payments, as covered by your certificate, added to your studentship award to cover this period of illness once you return to study and, if your studentship has been officially suspended, your official submission deadline will change to reflect this time away from study.
Note that you will need to liaise both with the LISS DTP Team AND with your Institutional Postgraduate Administrations & Record Team, and make sure both organisations are kept up to date about your situation. Your supervisor can assist with this if you are too ill to manage it yourself.
If your period of illness continues for longer than 28 weeks, your studentship must be suspended at this point and your stipend payments will stop. When you return to study you will return to the same number of award months remaining as you had when you left and your final submission deadline will change to reflect the time you were suspended from study. This type of suspension should be arranged in consultation with your supervisor, department/institution and with the LISS DTP Team. Suspensions on account of illness will not normally be approved for periods in excess of 12 months.
1+3 / 1+3.5 students – please note that the 28weeks’ paid sick leave rule would not normally apply in your Masters year. If you are taken ill in your Masters year for more than a few weeks you would normally be expected to request a suspension of your LISS DTP award through the team. Part-time students in this position should note the rules and regulations with regard to the payment of fees and notify their supervisor and the LISS DTP team in the case of long-term illness.
Please contact the LISS DTP Team at liss-dtp@kcl.ac.uk for more information.
Additional Leave
Some additional leave may be provided to cover specific instances where a student may be required to be absent from study that are not covered by other types of leave.
e.g.) carer’s leave, public duties, additional disability leave associated with delayed adjustments or bereavement.
Please contact the LISS DTP Team at liss-dtp@kcl.ac.uk for more information.
Annual Leave
Student are entitled to reasonable paid holidays (a minimum of 30 days to a maximum of eight weeks per year to include public holidays). The amount is pro rata for Part-Time students. Leave must be approved by Supervisors. Annual Leave comes out of the existing time frame for the studentship and the studentship will not be extended to accommodate this.
Students undertaking study in collaboration with non-academic partners are expected to consider their obligations to those partners in planning leave.