Institution
Newcastle University
Author
Professor Judith Rankin and Kevin Johnson
Overview
To support returning parents and unpaid carers, Newcastle University developed a Returners Support Programme (RSP), originally introduced in 2017. The RSP has since been updated in a variety of ways, for example, by reducing leave length for eligibility and broadening the offer to include unpaid carers and professional services colleagues. This ensures the offer meets the Newcastle community’s needs and reaffirms our commitment to being a family friendly organisation.
About the organisation
Newcastle University (NU) is a research-intensive, global institution and is ranked in the top 130 universities in the world (QS World University Rankings). NU has 6,574 colleagues (2024); 1,916 academics, 1,017 researchers and 3,641 professional services (PS) colleagues. A total of 3,643 (55.4%) colleagues are female. The University is home to over 29,000 (52.3% female) students from over 140 countries and offers undergraduate, postgraduate taught and research degrees in over 40 subject areas. 21% of their students are from the local area.
The University has participated in the Athena Swan charter since 2009, first receiving a Bronze Award (2009-2012), which was renewed (2012-2015). It progressed to a Silver Award (2016-2019), renewed from 2019-2025, and most recently achieved an institutional Gold Award (2025-2030).
Purpose of the initiative
The Returners Support Programme (RSP) was established in 2017 as part of our commitment to being a family-friendly University and supporting the career progression of colleagues. The programme is designed to support colleagues returning to work after extended parental or carer leave of at least 12 weeks by providing tailored funding to rebuild career momentum. The RSP initiative has pertinence to gender equality as women are more likely to take longer periods of parental or carer leave and experience the challenge of regaining momentum upon returning to work.
Through the RSP, colleagues can access up to £5,000, rising to £10,000 where funding includes the appointment of an additional post. The funding can be used flexibly, for example, to access training, reduce teaching commitments for a semester, facilitate a phased return to work, attend conferences, or appoint fixed-term technical or research support e.g. to generate preliminary data for grant applications.
Since its launch, the RSP has supported 101 colleagues with a total spend to date of over £600,000. It was reviewed as part of our most recent Athena Swan action plan (2019–2025), and through consultation and feedback, our offer has been expanded and enhanced.
Description of the initiative
The University conducted a Parents and Carers Survey in 2017 and results demonstrated colleagues expressed difficulty in maintaining career momentum when returning from extended parental leave - such as maternity/pregnancy leave, adoption leave, shared parental leave - or extended carers’ leave. Based on this feedback, the University launched the Returners' Support Programme (RSP) in 2017, to offer flexible, tailored support for colleagues returning from extended parental or carers' leave, regardless of their length of service. Eligible colleagues can apply for funding to support them to get back up to speed and regain career momentum upon their return to work.
We conducted a review of RSP in 2023 by inviting all past applicants, RSP coordinators who support colleagues, and panel members who review applications, to two focus groups.
The focus groups were attended by 20 colleagues; findings revealed that participants value the RSP as it demonstrates the University’s commitment to parents by recognising the need to support returners in regaining their career momentum after a lengthy period of leave.
Focus group attendees suggested several improvements e.g. a reduction to the minimum length of leave to be able to access support. Participants reflected that a colleague taking shared parental leave may not access 18 weeks of leave as originally stipulated by the policy but may still be impacted by loss of career momentum. Feedback also included a request to broaden the access of the RSP to include unpaid carers who may require extended periods of leave in addition to parents.
The RSP policy was updated in December 2023 to reduce the number of weeks of leave required to access support from 18 weeks to 12 weeks, which increases accessibility to the initiative e.g. for colleagues on shared parental leave. The policy also broadened scope to include unpaid carers as well.
The RSP was initially designed to provide flexible, tailored support for academics and researchers to reduce the impact of extended leave on the delivery of their activities. The RSP was extended to PS colleagues in 2021 following consultation but the numbers of applications have remained low for PS colleagues compared to academics. To ensure that the RSP is an example of best practice, and as part of our commitment to being a family-friendly University, we have included an action in our Gold action plan to continually review and promote the initiative and to increase awareness of the RSP across the organisation.
Rationale
We chose to review the RSP during our last awarding period as we wanted to ensure that our offer was up to date and fit for purpose for all our colleagues. The RSP had been in place since 2017 and as part of our continual consultation on the RSP, feedback suggested some ways to improve it. We reviewed the initiative during our 2019-2025 awarding period.
Results
The RSP supports parents and long-term carers, helping to ensure they are not disproportionately affected by career breaks or interruptions. This support is particularly valuable for female colleagues, who are more likely to take extended parental leave or undertake long-term unpaid caring responsibilities. By mitigating the long-term impact of such breaks on career progression, the RSP contributes to creating more equitable opportunities and supports career progression.
The RSP has had a clear positive impact on colleagues returning from parental or caring leave. As one RSP recipient reflected:
‘Coming back from parental leave, the RSP was really beneficial in giving me the confidence to progress my career at a time when I might otherwise have paused it. I would really recommend it.’ (RSP female recipient)
‘Schemes like these are really vital in getting people back into work and back up to speed, this experience inspired me to become an EDI Director in my School. It’s a fantastic scheme and I’m just really thankful that it was drawn to my attention when it was’ (RSP female recipient)
The University’s wider ‘For Families’ project, which developed the RSP alongside a suite of other family-friendly initiatives, was recognised with the 2023 Universities Human Resources (UHR) Culture Change and Organisational Development Award. The award commended the extensive consultation with colleagues, the creation of multiple initiatives, and the tangible benefits these provide in enabling staff to reach their full potential.
Our progress is also reflected in survey results: the proportion of colleagues agreeing with the statement ‘I found the family-friendly policies of the University suited my needs’ increased from 37.5% in the 2017 NU Parents and Carers Survey (NUPCS; 541 respondents) to 51.2% in the 2024 survey (422 respondents).
Key barriers and facilitators
In 2024-25, financial measures were implemented. The University took the decision to continue with the RSP in line with their commitment to supporting colleagues. They did, however, make a change to the provision, removing the payment for travel in line with the travel restrictions introduced across the organisation at the time. This change was implemented in September 2024 until July 2025 but the policy is now back to its full offer.
The future?
The RSP is a flagship policy at Newcastle University. However, there is still work to do to raise awareness of RSP, for example, 56.6% of respondents to the NUPCS (2024) were not aware of the RSP. We, therefore, aim to promote the initiative further with a view to reducing the proportion of participants who are not aware of RSP to 20% by 2030. There will also be a review of our wider suite of family friendly policies and practices including the RSP to ensure our offer remains up-to-date and supportive to our colleagues. We are committed to concluding this review by the summer of 2027.
Advice for other members
We recommend that institutions collect data on the experiences of parents and unpaid carers within their organisation. At Newcastle, we undertook a staff engagement survey in 2016, a dedicated NUPCS in 2017, and another NUPCS in 2024. Feedback highlighted challenges such as the lack of easily accessible information about parental leave and limited support for colleagues returning to work. These findings informed the development of the funded For Families project, which led to the creation of several initiatives, including the RSP.
In line with our own practice, we also recommend that institutions continually review and consult on their provision to ensure it remains relevant, supportive, and fit for purpose.
Web links
Please read about our colleague, Dr Nicola Heslehurst, who utilised RSP when returning to her Senior Lecturer role: Returners Support Programme | Faculty of Medical Sciences | Newcastle University
Newcastle University on X - Newcastle University (@UniofNewcastle) / X
Newcastle University on LinkedIn - (6) Newcastle University: Posts | LinkedIn
Advance HE shares a range of practice and approaches to charters awards. Case studies/example applications illustrate one approach to race/gender equality work but there are a variety of successful approaches and we recommend charter members consider their local evidence-base and context when deciding how to advance equality in their setting.