Parental and medical leave & disabled student allowance
Parental 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 full stipend rate. The following 13 weeks will be paid at a level commensurate with employee entitlements to statutory maternity pay. This is c. 41% of the basic doctoral stipend. 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 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.
Leave for illness
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 13 weeks, then your stipend payments can continue if covered by medical certificates for up to 13 weeks, within any 12 month period. (Please send certificates to the LISS DTP team or submit them to your department/school office and tell us that you have done so. ) You will have up to 13 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 Admin 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 13 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 students – please note that the 13 weeks’ 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.
Disabled student allowance
Any disabled student who, because of disability, is obliged to incur additional expenditure in connection with their studies, may be eligible for an allowance. The Research Councils have adopted a harmonised approach to DSA. Additional guidance and a claim form is available on the RCUK website: http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/skills/training Requests for DSA must be undertaken in consultation with the Disability Office at the university where you are registered:
King’s College London: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/campuslife/services/disability/index.aspx
Queen Mary University of London: http://www.dds.qmul.ac.uk/
Imperial College: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/disability-advisory-service/
