Parents & Carers Funding Scheme

PLEASE NOTE:
The Parent & Carer Funding Scheme is currently closed, while applications are reviewed.

About the scheme

The Parent & Carer Funding Scheme provides funds to support the professional development of members of the department who have taken a career break or period of leave for parental leave or other caring responsibility (also applies if about to start leave). 

The Scheme offers up to £3000 to support professional development for academic staff, professional services staff and PhD students taking parent’s or carer’s leave, whether this is a total leave of absence or going to part-time/reduced hours. The scheme addresses the issue that staff/students returning from long-term leave tend to lose opportunities for career progression that are hard to regain through normal channels.

Activities that could be funded by the Scheme include: 

  • Childcare costs to cover ‘out of hours’ networking event(s).
  • Indirect childcare expenses (e.g. the travel and accommodation expenses of the person looking after an accompanying child while the staff member attends a conference)
  • Funding towards attendance at conferences in the UK and overseas
  • Funding towards travel and accommodation costs of research collaborators coming to the Institute of Ophthalmology (to reduce the need for the returning carer to travel and to support work-life balance)
  • Short-term research support (e.g. to generate preliminary data to support research grant applications)
  • Secondments or short term research assignments (e.g. to an external laboratory)
  • Support for assistance in grant writing
  • Training to support career development

The list is not exhaustive and applicants are encouraged to make requests for funding for any item relevant to directly support the career of the applicant. 

Further details

The panel reviewing the applications will consider each case depending on the specific circumstances and needs of the individual. 

There is a fixed amount of funding available, so support may be capped, depending on demand and merits of applications. As an approximate guide, we hope to be able to fund individual applications in the order of £1000, and we will consider applications as high as £3000. 

Applicants should complete the scheme application form below and send to: ioo-equality@ucl.ac.uk

For more information about the decision and notification process, please see FAQs below. 

For any queries, please contact ioo-equality@ucl.ac.uk

FAQs

Applications are welcomed from all staff and students of the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology who:

  • Have returned from a break in their career for caring responsibilities in the last 2 years
    or
  • Are currently on a break in their career for caring responsibilities
    or
  • Are due to go on a break in their career for caring responsibilities

This applies if the break from IoO was complete, or if you have been working part-time or reduced hours because of caring responsibilities

This can include, but is not restricted to:

  • Adoption leave
  • Career breaks for family reasons
  • Leave to work part-time or reduced hours for family reasons under UCL's flexible working policy
  • Maternity leave
  • Paternity leave
  • Parental leave
  • Special leave to care for a dependant

The total period of continuous leave or continuous reduced hours should normally be 3 months or more. 

Please note that no support can be given for any expenditure after the expected end of employment. All staff applying to the scheme must have a UCL employment contract, and students must be registered for a MPhil/PhD at UCL. 

Staff and students are only eligible if they are primarily based at the Institute of Ophthalmology during their working week. 

The purpose of applications should be to request support in building up a research profile or other professional development activity related to your career after a period of significant caring responsibilities that has affected the applicant’s ability to carry out research or make progress on their career.

Awards will be made only where it is clear that there is no other source of funding for the items requested (e.g. grant funding) and that items will be of personal benefit to applicant.

The following will not be funded from the Scheme:

  • Personal salary support
  • Routine costs of research which should be funded through grant (or other) funding
  • Equipment

It is expected that conferences essential to an applicant’s research will be funded by the sponsor paying the applicant’s salary or funding his/her research project. Where such funding is not available, this should be explained in the application and confirmed in the line manager’s statement of support.

Applications for funding will be considered by the following panel:

  • Wing-Chau Tung (Chair) 
  • Pearse Keane
  • Patric Turowski
  • Cynthia Wilson
  • Dhani Tracey-White
  • Richard Cable

If eligible requests exceed available funding, awards will be given to those requests which the committee considers will have the most impact.

Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application within 4 weeks. 

Most awarded funds will likely be for items that can be spent through existing research budgets and are non-taxable. Receipts/invoices will be needed so that funds will be transferred from the Equality Challenge Team’s budget. 

Costs that are taxable, which can apply for care-related costs, will have to be repaid via payroll. As above receipts/invoices will still be needed. These claims will be made via the HR expenses system 'Myfinance'. 

Athena Swan Bronze Award logo

Scheme acknowledgement

This initiative from the Equality Challenge Team at the Institute of Ophthalmology has been adapted from the University of Cambridge’s Returning Carers Scheme.