Academics Research Fellowships & Maternity Leave

[Chloris33]

I have a 5 year fellowship at my university, internally funded by the university, and will soon be taking one year of maternity leave. So far my university can't tell me whether this means I will 'lose' a year of my fellowship to maternity leave or whether they will be able to extend my contract so that it is still effectively a 5 year fellowship of research.

The fellowship is to conduct my own research as PI, not to work on someone else's grant.

Does anyone have any experience of this, or any ideas re. employment law. I feel that not to extend my contract would be 'unfavourable' treatment as it will mean that my fellowship is a year shorter than my male colleagues, for example.

Thanks!

[murasaki]

External (MRc, Wellcome etc) do do maternity leave, so I'd be very surprised if the university could get away with it. You're funded by them just like an academic member of staff, just with a different job title - they'd be on a sticky wicket, i think.

[Sleepytea]

The university should have funds for covering maternity pay and sick leave etc... Have you checked your university policies? Guidelines should be laid out there but in theory you should not be disadvantaged by your maternity leave.
From personal experience, I would keep records of all correspondence for the future. If you speak to anyone, try and confirm by email.

[Chloris33]

Thanks for responses. They are offering me maternity leave, the standard package, what is in question is whether they will extend my contract by one year because I will have spent a year of the fellowship on maternity leave. Someone else with exactly the same fellowship as me did get her contract extended by one year, but that was under a previous Director, and the new Director says he doesn't know and is deferring to the Administrator, who is saying it depends on the Department's budget and she will have to look at the budget. I think they should have a clear policy, though!

[Sleepytea]

The usual problem is the funding. The maternity pay should be separate from the funds that pay you your salary. Have you spoken to anyone in the personnel office. They should know the rules better than you head of department.
I had a similar situation where I had a contract that ended whilst I was on maternity leave. It actually suited me to leave then because we were going overseas for a few years so I had some redundancy pay as well. However the university tried to wriggle out of giving me the redundancy because if my maternity was discounted, then I still had 8 weeks of contract left. Luckily I had emails from senior people telling me I couldn't extend it.