Support Measures

The delays due to lack of project progress during maternity leave have been suggested as one of the causes of mother’s loss of competiveness in science. With the "Pregnancy and Maternity Leave Compensation", the NCCR RNA & Disease covers the full salary of a research assistant during the last trimester of pregnancy. During this time, the research assistant is trained with the necessary skills and knowledge and supports the pregnant women in her research activities. During the maternity leave, the research assistant continues and advances the work on the project of the "Pregnancy and Maternity Leave Compensation" scheme recipient.

This scheme will run until the reserved funds are depleted.

Guidelines pregnancy and maternity leave compensation
Annex pregnancy and maternity leave compensation

Note that NCCR-funded postdocs can apply for the SNSF flexibility grant after returning from maternity leave, which allows for part-time employment and the employment of a research assistant with a total workload of up to 120% (e.g. 80% postdoc + 40% technician; see information below).

The NCCR/SNSF awards flexibility grants to junior researchers who look after children to help them reconcile their research activities and academic career with child-care duties. The grant provides funding towards the cost of hiring a support person and towards child-care costs. The two measures "Grant towards hiring a support person" and "Grant towards child-care costs" may be combined.

Grant for hiring a support person
The grant enables postdocs of NCCR member labs to reduce their work quota from 80%-100% to a minimum quota of 60% and hire a support person (scientific or technical staff member or assistant) for the research project funded by the NCCR/SNSF.

Grant for child-care costs
The Flexibility grant provides funding towards the child-care costs of junior researchers.

Please note that doctoral students are only eligible to receive child-care grants but not grants towards the costs of hiring a support person.

"Combining young children with scientific research results in stringent time restrictions on one's research, especially on labwork, which cannot be performed remotely. The 120% support grant directly addresses this issue. Employing a technician two days per week to perform important but time intensive sample preparations has allowed me to spend my limited time in the lab on the critical experiments keeping the project progressing whilst also spending one fulfilling weekday purely devoted to my son."
Fionna Loughlin, former postdoc in the group of Prof. F. Allain at ETH Zürich and recipient of the 120% support grant.

If you are interested in applying to the NCCR Flexibility support grant, please contact the the NCCR RNA & Disease office (officewhatever@nccr-rna-and-disease.ch).

When both parents have more capacity to take responsibility for childcare and housework, mothers can recover better from childbirth and it facilitates the reconciliation of childcare and career. Supporting both parents to take over a more active role in family work and to spend more time with the newborn child can lay the foundation for shared care-work on a long-term basis. Furthermore, the support of parental leave will support a change in gender role stereotypes and contribute to equal opportunities in a long-term perspective.

The NCCR RNA & Disease reserved funds to cover the salary of PhD students or postdocs during six weeks of parental leave. Fathers (or partners in same-sex couples) of a newborn child are eligible to apply for the parental leave. The paternal leave can be taken during maximum six weeks with an up to 100% salary compensation; or over an extended period with a respectively reduced salary compensation (e.g., 50% compensation over twelve weeks). The parental leave shall preferably be taken in one continuous block.

Together with the two weeks paternity leave funded by the earning compensation scheme in Switzerland, male researchers can take up to two months of fully paid paternity leave in total. This scheme will run until the reserved funds are depleted.

More information: Guidelines for the Parental Leave Support

Conferences or short stays at foreign research institutes are important parts of the professional development of young scientists and can aid in advancing their careers and fulfilling their research goals. Conferences offer an opportunity for networking, training in presentation skills, staying current with the latest developments in the research field, providing career opportunities, and last but not least, serve as a source of inspiration. Researchers with young children often require extra-ordinary child-care options during conference stays, incurring additional expenses.

The NCCR RNA & Disease supports conferences or short research stays of junior scientists by providing funds to cover any increased child-care costs incurred. This arrangement will apply until the reserved funds are depleted.

More information: Guidelines for child-care support during conferences and short research stays

The NCCR RNA & Disease has reserved funds to reimburse emergency child-care costs for parents that are employed in a NCCR RNA & Disease or associated laboratory.

More information: Guidelines for emergency childcare reimbursement