Call for Supplementary maternity refund for PhD students and postdocs

Running application deadline

According to their collective maternity leave agreements, PhD students and postdocs are entitled to compensation according to the following:

• Maternal leave: 32 weeks with full salary. 6 weeks before the delivery and 26 weeks after.
• Paternal leave: 15 weeks, if the 13 weeks are not transferred to the other partner.

The employer will receive compensation from Udbetaling Danmark and Statens Barselsfond with an amount equivalent to the rate for unemployment benefit for a period of up to 32 weeks.

Expenses for maternity leave are not included in PhD or postdoc stipends, which leaves the employer with an additional expenditure corresponding to the difference between the compensation from Udbetaling Damark and the ordinary salary. 

After the weeks with full salary (see above for entitled weeks), the PhD students or postdocs will have to self-apply for public maternity benefit.

Purpose

In order to ensure equal rights and avoid an unreasonable strain of the budget of some research units, the Health Faculty at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) and the University Odense University Hospital (OUH) have agreed to cover expenses for the difference between unemployment benefit and the ordinary salary the first 24 weeks of maternity leave.

How to submit an application

SDU provides supplementary maternity refund when:

• PhD students and postdocs are employed at the Department of Clinical Research and are financedby means administrated by SDU meaning that the means are placed at an account at SDU.
• PhD students and postdocs are financed by a stipend from the faculty.

Please contact the Department of Clinical Research in the above cases.

OUH provides supplementary maternity refund when:

• PhD students and postdocs are employed at a department at OUH, and their salary is being paid by either a clinical department or from a research account. In these cases, the OUH central maternity fund will cover the expense, and the department management must apply for refund from the central maternity fund by registering the expense by the so-called Tjenestekode G in the salary system. For more information, please refer to the OUH Intranet.
• PhD students and postdocs are employed at SDU, but the means are being administrated by OUH, i.e. that the means are placed at a research account at OUH. In these cases, means from the OUH Research Fund can be applied to cover the difference between unemployment benefit and the ordinary salary.

The following must be submitted to ouh.forskning@rsyd.dk:

• Documentation of employment at SDU, and that the means for salary are being administrated by OUH. The number of the research account the salary is paid out from must be attached.
• Documentation from ”Økonomiservice” at SDU for expenses related to the maternity leave; that is the difference between the reimbursement from the municipality and the actual salary expense. 

Assessment procedure

Decision on the application will be forwarded within two weeks.

Questions and contact information

Please forward questions to ouh.forskning@rsyd.dk.