Maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental and carer's leave

Salary and studentship stipend costs

Wellcome will abide by the terms and conditions of your employing organisation for maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental leave and pay. If you receive a Wellcome studentship stipend, we expect your organisation to provide you with the same leave and pay entitlements as an employee.

We will provide additional funds for the actual salary or stipend paid to you while you’re on leave, less any recoverable statutory pay.

We’ll fund these costs if you’re:

• the grantholder and Wellcome funds your salary
• staff member on a Wellcome grant that funds your salary
• a student in receipt of a Wellcome studentship stipend.

The costs can include:

• your basic salary
• employer's contributions (for example, National Insurance contributions if you're based in the UK) and pension scheme costs
• any incremental progression up the salary scale
• any paid leave accrued during your time off
• keeping in touch days
• other benefits (you must tell us what these are, for example childcare vouchers).

They must not include:

• any recoverable statutory pay

Research costs

We'll provide additional funds for the direct research costs, if you:

• are the grantholder and the sole lead of the research, even if Wellcome doesn’t fund your salary and
• take leave for a month or more. 

You don’t have to ask us for these costs. We'll automatically give them to you when you return to work and we know how long you've been on leave.

We will pay 50% of your research costs, pro-rata, for the period you are on leave.

The amount is based on the costs in your original award letter. It doesn’t include:

• your salary (see ‘Salary and studentship stipend costs’ above)
• fellowship supplements and Royal Society contributions (if applicable)
• overseas allowances
• inflation
• any costs we’ve given you for public engagement
• any supplement we’ve provided since your grant started.

For example, if you took six months’ leave the supplement would be £12,000 if we awarded you £240,000 for your research costs and your grant is for 60 months. 

Before you start your leave, contact the Funding Manager for your award to let us know that you or your member of staff will be taking leave.

Just before you return to work, your research office must complete and submit a Returning from leave form.

If you or your staff member takes shared parental leave, your organisation should complete this form just before you or they return to work from the final period of shared parental leave.

Contact us if you need help to complete the form. .

When we receive the completed form, we’ll supplement your grant.  We will write to let you know the supplement amount and confirm any change to your grant end date. 

Tell us as soon as possible if you or your staff member decide not to return to work.

If you are the grantholder we will extend the end date of your grant to match the amount of leave you’ve taken. If a staff member on your grant has taken leave and you want to extend the grant contact us to discuss further. 

Contact us if you need to take extended time off for unpaid parental leave, and you want to change your grant end date.

You can return to work part-time if your employing organisation agrees.

We may extend your grant end date further.

Employees on Wellcome grants are entitled to take five days of unpaid carer's leave a year as their statutory right. Host organisations are responsible for accommodating requests in line with their other HR procedures. 

For further advice, visit www.gov.uk/carers-leave.