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

Salary and studentship stipend costs

Wellcome will normally 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 supplement your grant by the actual costs your employing organisation incurs paying your salary or stipend while you’re on leave, less any recoverable statutory pay.

We’ll cover these costs if you’re a:

• grantholder and Wellcome funds your salary
• member of staff on a Wellcome grant that funds your salary
• 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 automatically provide these).

Research costs

We'll supplement your grant to contribute towards your direct research costs.

We'll cover these costs if you:

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

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
• Flexible Funding Allowance
• inflation
• any costs we’ve given you for public engagement
• any supplement we’ve awarded you since your grant started.

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

Before you start your leave, contact us 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 your grant/post is funded through our Institutional Strategic Support Fund, contact us first. Do not complete the form.

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

If you need help to complete this form, contact us or call +44 (0)2 7611 5757.

When we receive the form, we’ll supplement your grant and write to let you know the amount and confirm any change to your grant end date. You don’t have to ask us for the research costs – we'll automatically supplement your grant when we have this information.

You must tell us as soon as possible if you or your member of staff decide not to return to work.

You can extend the end date of your grant to match the amount of leave you’ve taken. If a member of staff on your grant has taken leave, you'll need to justify why you need to extend the grant.

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.