Any absence must be reported to the supervisor immediately and medical certificates provided if appropriate. Absences should be recorded on the student’s Holiday and Absence card and certified by the Director of Studies.
For students in receipt of stipend awards, during absence covered by medical certificates, payment of the award will be continued at the full rate for up to 13 weeks, accumulated within any 12-month period from the first day of absence. For longer periods of certified illness, the award will be held in abeyance, and no payment will be made until the return to study.
For periods of certified illness longer than 13 weeks, the student and supervisor should submit the RDC3s Application for Suspension of Studies form to the School Research Progression and Awards Board as per the normal process for suspension to cover the duration of the absence. Upon return to their studies, the suspension should be ended and for funded students, the research studentship award payments will be renewed for the remaining duration of the three-year period of funding. All students (funded and self-funded) will also have their maximum registration end date extended by the period of the suspension.
It is up to the School’s discretion if they wish to supplement the above payment award for certified absence; however, funds must be found from the School for this student.
Case scenario: A student who is absent from their studies for 20 weeks due to illness, should suspend their studies for 20 weeks. If funded they will be entitled to payments for the first 13 weeks of illness, have their monthly payments suspended for seven weeks until they return to study and then will receive a further seven weeks of award payment at the end of their original three-year period of funded study. Funded and self-funded students will have their target dates for submission of the RDC1, RDC2 and thesis and their maximum registration end date extended by the suspension period of 20 weeks.
The RDC3c (Application for Covid-19 Extension of Registration) process is now closed. Any student seeking an extension due to illness, including Covid-19, should use the RDC3e process.
Full-time research students are entitled to the same holiday allowance as Academic and Research staff of 35 days annual leave each year. The annual leave calendar runs from 1 October to 30 September. Students with February or May start dates are entitled to 23 days and 15 days annual leave respectively, for the remainder of their commencing academic year.
GCU is normally closed for three days that are not included in academic and research public holiday entitlement, which falls during the Christmas break. These should be deducted from your annual leave entitlement.
For part-time research students, holiday entitlement is calculated on a pro-rated basis and is inclusive of public holidays making their annual entitlement 23 days. Part-time students with February or May start dates are entitled to 15 days and nine days' leave respectively for the remainder of their commencing academic year.
Annual leave dates should be recorded on your Holiday and Absence Record, signed off by your Supervisor and sent to your Programme Coordinator (Research Degrees) for logging.
Regular breaks are important for mental health and wellbeing; the University strongly encourages all research students to take their annual leave. All students at GCU can access support for their wellbeing, visit Student Support’s GCU Wellbeing for more information.
Jury duty is recognised as an authorised reason for leave of absence from your research study. If you are called for jury duty, please inform your Director of Studies. You should record your jury duty days as an absence due to jury duty on your Holiday and Absence Card and get your Director of Studies to sign approving the days as authorised absences.
You should submit your signed Holiday and Absence card, along with your jury duty citation letter as evidence of the reason for the absence, to your Research Programme Coordinator for your student record. Undertaking jury duty is a different category of absence separate from annual leave and therefore undertaking jury duty does not affect your holiday entitlement.
