Establishing a conference care fund

To support with payments of additional childcare arrangements for individuals attending conferences/ workshop/training.

To encourage and support individuals with caring responsibilities to attend conferences/trainings/workshops which are important for their career development.

Recognising that conference attendance is an essential requirement for anyone building a prosperous research career and the difficulties in attending conferences for parents  a fund was established to assist with payments of additional childcare arrangements for individuals attending conferences/ workshop/training. Small Awards (of up to £150) are available to academic, research active staff and those in appropriate support or administrative posts to help support the extra child-care costs associated with attendance at conferences. Individuals interested in getting this support, they need to submit a form stating why they need additional support and outlining normal child caring arrangements. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until the available money is used up. A sub-committee of the Warwick Athena SWAN Network Group assess applications.

The fund had been set up with the assumption that individuals will claim for childcare and claims for caring responsibilities beyond childcare are not accommodated under the current fund.

We are looking into ways to set the fund in a different way to allow for various types of caring arrangements to be covered by it.

A committee (3-4 members max) to evaluate applications. Financial resources allocated to this.

52 claims have been submitted until September 2016 (7 male, 45 female) since the introduction of the fund and approximately 3,000 pounds in total have been allocated for this purpose.

The individuals who are successful in getting this support, they need to submit a very brief report as to whether the money actually made a difference to the applicant and whether there are any future funding applications that can be ascribed to it.

This fund proved so popular that it was subsequently agreed that all four Faculties of the institution would contribute £1000 each per yet to increase the budget available (each claim capped at £100 and limited to 2 claims per academic year). Feedback from staff utilising the fund has been excellent.

Work and personal life integration

Availability of supports/resources

University of Warwick (WARWICK)
Higher education institution

Researchers/professors and technical and administrative staff