Across our partner institutions, an average of 200 research staff take an extended period of parental leave each year. We are committed to ensuring these individuals feel supported and empowered as they transition back into their research roles.

Recognising the challenges that can accompany this return, we have commissioned a research project to identify effective, no-cost strategies that support a smooth and successful return. This project examines both the existing practices across our partners and broader approaches within the wider sector.

The project engages directly with research staff, who are returning or have recently returned from leave, to understand their experiences and needs. It will explore the types of resource-conscious initiatives that would best enable them to thrive in their careers, particularly in the context of ongoing financial and operational constraints.

Project co-leads

• Alys Kay, Research Culture Coach and Consultant
• Dr Sarah Penny, Researcher Developer at the University of York

Project updates

Shaping the next 18 months (October 2026)

Read how we brought colleagues from all three White Rose universities together for a workshop, ‘From evidence to implementation ’, for the next phase of the project. 

Watch project co-lead Alys Kay explain the purpose of the workshop and what comes next.

Cross-institutional workshop insights (May 2026)

In this project update, project co-lead Alys shares how key findings from the cross-institutional workshop confirmed that researchers in near-identical circumstances can have completely different return experiences, and that return-to-research is a distributed system.

Designing research culture: reflections from our parental leave project (March 2026)

In this reflective piece, project co-lead Alys shares what a service-design lens is revealing about how institutions produce – or fail to produce – safety, trust and equity at moments of vulnerability. Alys is starting her next phase of consultative stakeholder engagement across Leeds, Sheffield and York, and we will share further findings as they emerge.

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