Overview of this session

This information session will be delivered by experts from People and Culture at Queen's and will provide information on the maternity leave policy, how it applies to staff funded through research grants, as well as showcase some facilities and initiatives available at Queen's to new parents. 

While the University's maternity leave policy is the same to all pregnant staff members, it can be difficult for research staff, mainly employed on fixed-term contracts funded by external research funders, to understand how it will affect the length of their contract and their contract end date. The answer depends on the funder and the specific situation, and the session will cover a few examples to clarify the process. It will also mention additional concepts, such as health and safety, attending pre-natal care appointments, 'keep in touch' days, using annual leave to extend a period of leave or for a phased return, length of leave and pay etc.

Additional benefits available at Queen's, such as enhanced maternity pay, childcare facilities, childcare vouchers and breastfeading/milk expression facilities will also be discussed.

This is the opportunity to raise awareness of the new maternity leave intranet pages recently developed by People and Culture, for which new research staff FAQs and case studies were added (in collaboration with the PDC and Queen's Gender Initiative). Signposting to these pages is also available on the Work-life balance page of the PDC website's 'Policy & guidance' section.

There will be time for questions by participants.

The content will be tailored to research staff, including fellowship holders, but some of it will also be relevant to others on fixed term contracts and everyone is welcome to attend. It is expected to be also of interest to Principal Investigators who line-manage research staff on fixed-term contracts.

Auto generated captions will be enabled for accessibility.

Facilitators

The session will be facilitated by Clare Carson (HR Business partner) and Heather Callighan (Diversity and Inclusion Officer) from the People and Culture Directorate at Queen's.

The 'Postdoc Life' series

The 'Postdoc Life' series of information sessions aims at highlighting some of the internal and sector developments and initiatives to postdocs and research staff, in order to help them better understand and navigate their direct (Queen's) and wider (UK Research and Innovation sector) environment.

Sessions are organised approximately every other month, with topics informed by the PDC Representatives' Network. All postdocs and research staff can suggest future topics by contacting the PDC (pdc@qub.ac.uk) or their local representative.