Pradeep Eranti
Fernanda Bajanca
Pradeep Eranti
Lidia Natalia Trusilewicz
Maternity leave
Maternity leave Dear all, I have asked to REA the delicate and important question of maternity leave during the conduction of the project. I have got the answer yesterday after 2 months of waiting for a very generic/simplified answer:" For the case of the COFUND fellowships we only pay the beneficiary (your employer) for the time that the scientist are active. It is possible to have a sick leave or a parental leave, in those cases the fellowship can be extended. The problem might come at the end of the project, as we cannot pay after the project has officially finished. Best regards, Oscar Barreiro" I would really like your opinion upon this matter. I have replied that this has to be solved in the MSCA due to their policy of gender equality. Promoting something which is not true is a little hypocrite isn`t it? Thank you for your contribution. Kind regards, Nina
12 Comments
Dear Brian,
thank you for taking interest in this matter. My opinion is that the MCAA can make a lot of influence and effort to have finally some crucial answers. I have already asked this question multiple times during the Confernces in Luxembourg, Brussels and Zagreb were we had the COFUND mettings but the answer was - no, there is no possibilty for the COFUND to have a maternity leave. Why? The end of all the programme/project should be - like in my case - end of December. Than there is no money to finance the Host Insitution. I had personaly a health issue - broke my leg and was on sick leave for 7 month - and had to terminate my sick leave suggested by the coordinator of the COFUND in Croatia before my health allowed me - so I went with complications after the operation on work and still suffer some pain. Why? They told me there is not sufficient money. This made me think what happens if a female researcher gets pregnante and what are the options for the maternity leave. I will forward you the link for the NEWFELPRO COFUND where is specified that all the projects has to be terminated by the end of 2017. We can discuss this openly all together during the Salmanca GA if the colleagues are up to - we also have a GEMS metting there so will put out the issue as I have already did with my GEMS colleagues. Also, would like to share with you that on this and other matter the publicist of Marie Curie contacted me for a Skype metting - so it seems there are many unsolved situations in their programme (my opinion). You can contact me for more details on my email or on Skype if it is needed.
Here is the link of the Croatian COFUND programme where you can find the specification of the termination date of the projects:
http://www.newfelpro.hr/default.aspx?id=66
Thank you once again for your effort.
Kind regards, Nina
Dear Brian (and Nina),
issues on gender, and specially women's scientitfic career, in MSCA (as in many other fields) need a lot of further work. Nina has showed a common problem in maternity leave, because the EC leaves to each country's legal regulations (and sympathies) to solve it.
Because you mention that you want to be informed to lobby it the Commission, I take here the opportunity to raise another topic not considered when talking about family allowances. I have an Individual Fellopship within the Career Restart program and I am single parent. So I am a researcher abroad with a kid and no family support. When attending international conferences and seminars outside my current residence city, I srongly juggle to get care for my child including the costs of extra babysitting or even taking my kid to my parent's homecountry (8 hours travel). All this comes to my private expenses (or will to my research expenses, when the university will finally accept it), and therefore limit my professional career. It would be very interesting thus that European Commission also consider these particulars of single parents in scientific careers when budging the family allownaces for MSCA.
Regards,
Laia
Dear Laia,
thank you for your inclusion in this topics. Yes, I do agree that this important situation you are having should be also resolved. It would really best to maybe have a metting during the GA in Salmanca (if you are able to attend). If not, I would suggest to Brian to contact us for any needed help to write a report and address this to the Commission to maybe solve together the problems.
Also, if you are not still a member of GEMS - please do apply for the membership.
Personally - I admire your effort to balance your personal and researcher life. As a child of a single mom I really can relate.
Kind regards,
Nina
Dear Nina (and the rest of membrs of the group),
I would not be able to attend the GA in Salmanca, so please contact me for any needed help to write any report on gender and family equality issues.
Best, Laia
Dear Laila,
I will for sure contact you - but it all depends what Brian and other Chair member will decide. I hope our suggestion will be accepted.
Kind regards,
Nina
Dear Brian,
I have received the answer from the person in charge of my COFUND working in the EC.
The decision of the distribution of the money and end /finalization of the project is upon the host country of the COFUND.
Like Laila said, it is upon the hands of the country in charge. Unfortunately If any researcher in COFUND from Croatia has any serious injury or an unexpected pregnancy they have to stop/not finalizing their project because the due date of the project in the COFUND is one specific date (like mine - end of December). This issue has to be addressed among others about the maternity leave and other related issues.
Thank you.
Kind regards,
Nina
Dear all,
I believe that these issues are very important and need solutions. The fact that the EU allows each country to decide on such important issues may initially indicate freedon and flexibility but apparently it reveals very inequal sistuations. As Brian mentioned, the situation in Germany might be totally different than Croatia (Nina).
I am happy to collaborate with on these issues.
I would lalso like to add a few more details:
-a Marie Curie applicant has to declare its marital status at the time of the proposal submission. If the proposal is successful, this status has to be confirmed, two weeks after the anouncement of the positive evaluation. It is still not clear to me if the future fellow needs to confirm at that time that the inital status was correct (by the time of the submission) or if it is acceptable to change it if there is any change between the submission and the time when the positive evaluation is announced (that practically means in a period of about 5 months). Even if any possible change between September and February is accepted (please let me know if any of you has clarified that), there is no possibility to change the family status during the project. I personally find this unfair. I think there should be a modification that would allow the adjustment of the budget in case of changes in the family status of a researcher through out the project. I understand that it might cause bureocratic problems but if we want to speak about equal rights, gender equality and family support, there shouldn't be a different treat to a researcher that happened to become a parent before the beginning of the project (or the submission of the proposal?) and another researcher that happened to become a parent even a few months later than the previous example. I wonder what happens with a woman that is not married when she has to declare the marital status, yet she is pregnant and she will give birth after the beginning of the project!
-Another issue that I would like to add to the discussion is that the family allowance is the same for a researcher that is married but with no kids, a researcher that might be married with a kid, a single parent, a parent of more than one kid. I believe we can all understand that the needs are not the same in all the aforementioned cases. Therefore, this could be another point of inequality.
Best wishes
Magda
Dear Magdalini,
thank you for pointing out this also very important issues! I agree with both of them and it should be confronted and solved. Personally I was asked before the implementation of my project if I was a Ms or a Mrs during the application of the project - which is entering into the privacy of the researcher. There are many parts of the project application which has to be addressed.
Thank you again for your comments and initiative it makes me very positive that we can change some irregularities. I am looking forward to the decision of Brian and other members of making a official reports on the matter.
Kind regards,
Nina
Dear all,
I have just started my PhD within the context of a COFUND project in Germany and I have been told that at the moment there is no way to get an extension of the contract in case of pregnancy. Of course German laws in terms of paid leave would apply, but the contract would not get extended. I find this utterly unacceptable.
Is there anything I can do? Is there any movement within MC Fellows to bring visibility to the problem?
Thanks for your time and I look forward t your replies.
Best,
Diletta
Dear Diletta,
I am facing the same problem with my COFUND - and started this question with exactly that purpose - to make more visible the problem and maybe to act together with solving the issue.
It is not only in the situation of maternity leave, but unfortunatelly also if you have a serious health issue (operation, serious injury). In my experience I had to terminate my sick leave after a car accident and operation because my coordinator of the COFUND (Croatia) explained to me there is no possiblity of any extension after the agreed termination of the COFUND project.
REA (the person in charge for my COFUND) replied to me that they can only react if we write a personal official complain (they have a form for this kind of serious complains but they need evidence in the sense of written response from your COFUND coordinator). Which is in my opinion not a very wise move.
Brian what is your opinion - is there any chance to speak about this on our GA metting and maybe activate any solution? I would like also to ask the help of GEMS memmbers on this issue.
Kind regards,
Nina
Dear all,
Frstly, thank you Nina for raising this important topic. I was trying to find official information on the maternity policy for COFUND fellowships but to avail.
I am currently a COFUND sponsored researcher in UK, and about to take on a 1-year maternity leave in line with national regulations. The UK and my university (UCL) has a cost-neutral position on grant extention - the matched funding can be extended beyond the official end date of the project for the corresponding period of maternity leave, however I have just recieved notification from the EU grant manager that EC part of the grant cannot be extended and they openly "suggested" that I have to cut short my maternity leave:
"According to the dates and duration of the Fellowship I am afraid you can take maximum 9 months of maternity leave. This is because the Programme finishes on 31st December 2018 and your Fellowship needs to conclude by then. No EU funding is available after that date.
Please discuss this with your EC finance/projects team and confirm that you will be able to return from maternity leave on 06-05-2018, to resume the Fellowship. I will require a letter from HR stating the start and end date of the maternity leave.
I realise this is not what you were planning and am truly sorry about this. We took up your case with the European Commission but it was not possible to extend beyond the hard programme deadline."
To be clear, I have no intention of forfeit my legal right to maternity leave and will be contesting the decision and the policy. As many of you emphasized the current policy for COFUND parental/sick leave is a blatant form of gender/temporary disability discrimination and is in stark contrast to the presumed values of MSCA.
Best regards,
Miljana
Dear Nina,
Could you please keep me informed about this? I saw a very angry comment in our survey of supervisors about exactly this topic - extension of the final date of the project to accomodate maternity leave. On talking to people from the Commission they told me it couldn't possibly be a problem. In most national funding (at least in Germany), there is a possibility to have a cost-neutral project extension - the payments from social security/health insurance pay salary during parental leave and the research funding starts paying salary again on return from parental leave. The final date of the project gets extended but the cost to the Commission remains constant. For individual fellows, my understanding is that this is also the case. COFUND seems to allow the host a lot of freedom and flexibility to set up the boundary conditions for the fellowship itself. Extending the final date of a COFUND project is obviously more complicated than for an Individual Fellowship but I don't see why it is not possible in the case of a researcher taking maternity leave.
In Germany, the government offers 14 months of parental leave split between the two parents. There is very strong support for men to share parental leave and share the burden of looking after babies in the first year. This allows mothers to return to part-time work early and not lose connection with their careers - this is particularly relevant for research careers. "Career Restart" after child birth is a problem that the Commission has set up a panel of the Individual Fellowship to address. It would be very helpful if all programs clearly empower researchers to continue their projects on returning from childbirth. I will lobby the Commission to allow mothers returning to work to switch the fellowship to part-time funding. If one year at 100% was left on the project, then the fellow could choose to be paid for two years at 50%. Why not?
Regards,
Brian