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Posted Wed, 21 Sep 2011 22:47:45
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As mentioned to some at the medical sociology study group AGM in Chester last week, there is currently a consultation about the way in which the REF process will manage maternity leave. Members of the medsoc community may wish to respond to this consultation which closes on 5th October, or feed their views back via their institution.
You can read the full consultation document and respond online here: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref/pubs/2011/03_11/.
At the moment, under the draft criteria, a person may submit three rather than four outputs if their personal circumstances have reduced their research time by at least fourteen months.
This means someone who has a child during the REF period and takes the standard six months maternity/adoption leave will not be eligible to submit a reduced number of outputs. An individual who has two children, and takes the standard leave for each child will still not qualify. In short, women who take maternity leave will be expected to produce the same number of outputs as colleagues who do not.
The alternative under the current proposals is that institutions submit women who have taken maternity leave as having ‘complex circumstances’ which might justify a reduction in outputs (although this is not guaranteed), but this is at the discretion of individual institutions.
UCU suggest the alternative of a reduction of one item for each period of maternity leave. Though this does not fully address differences between women in terms of how much leave they choose to take, and does not adequately support academic fathers, in my view it would reduce the risk that the REF process, and individual institutions decisions about recruitment and retention of staff, end up disadvantaging women.
Catherine Will
Co-convenor BSA Medical Sociology Group
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