Sabbatical leave

Sabbatical leave is a paid form of leave for academic staff on grades 7-10 who have teaching as one of their main responsibilities (30% or more in their job description). Sabbaticals afford such staff a break from their regular duties of teaching and administration, so that they can conduct study and research relevant to their job. That is, the salary (and superannuation) of the staff member is still paid in full by the University. This has the consequence that no cash is freed to pay for a temporary replacement, so the duties of the member on sabbatical have to be covered by existing staff members. Sabbatical leave is explicitly not for the preparation of teaching materials, although research into teaching or education is eligible.

Official Constraints

An academic staff member with a research and teaching contract should usually have completed at least 4 years of service to be eligible for a sabbatical, and academic staff with teaching contracts should have at least 8 years of service. Sabbatical leave cannot happen in the final year of employment by the University.

A period of absence should be "in multiples of one semester" and should not normally exceed two semesters. Service earns leave at the rate of one semester for each four years of service within an eligible grade for staff with research and teaching contracts, and one semester for each eight years of service for staff with teaching contracts. Unpaid leave does not count towards sabbatical entitlement. Sabbatical leave itself counts towards the entitlement for subsequent sabbaticals; for fellowships see below. The first year of service as a Chancellor's Fellow does not count towards sabbatical entitlement either. This also applies to comparable fellowships where teaching and admin duties are lower than for newly appointed academic staff. Where someone has accumulated two semesters of sabbatical entitlement, they will be allowed to take leave for a 12-month period, usually beginning at the start of Semester 1.

The restrictions on taking on other employment are the same as if the person were still on normal duties; i.e. engagements such as consultancy are allowed, but a full salaried position is forbidden.

Staff are responsible for setting and marking all examinations associated with courses they have taught up to the time of their sabbatical leave. For non-honours courses, this means both the regular exam (December or May) and its resit. For sabbaticals commencing 1 August, staff are responsible for marking any MSc projects they have served as supervisor on in the period up to their sabbatical.

Anyone returning from sabbatical leave prior to or at the start of Semester 1 is responsible for proposing 4th year (honours) projects to be carried out in Semesters 1 and 2. Such proposals are normally made in the previous Spring Semester.

Anyone returning from sabbatical prior to or at the start of Semester 2 is responsible for proposing MSc projects to be carried out starting in Semester 2. Such proposals are normally made right at the start of Semester 2.

For sabbaticals lasting one semester and commencing in August, staff will normally not propose and supervise MSc projects in the semester preceding the sabbatical. No honours supervision is expected from staff taking a sabbatical lasting one semester during the relevant academic year.

Application Procedure

Within the School of Informatics, the procedure for applying for sabbatical leave is as follows. The applicant should send to the Informatics HR team a proposal stating:

1. the duration of sabbatical leave requested, and preferred period for it to occur;
2. the research or study to be carried out during the sabbatical period, at most 2 pages of A4, preferably shorter;
3. the reasons why this proposal should be supported at this time, and the rationale for the choice of duration/period of leave (about half a page) (this is for School use only);
4. an indication of what practical issues would arise from the leave (courses to be covered, etc.) and, where possible, the applicant's suggestions on how best to handle these (note that it is not the applicant's responsibility to arrange cover - the information is just to help the School);
5. an up to date curriculum vitae.

Here are two examples of the kind of thing expected:

Sabbatical Leave Request Example 1 (271.68 KB PDF)

Sabbatical Leave Request Example 2 (40.28 KB PDF)

The proposal will be forwarded to the School’s Sabbatical Leave Committee, which will make recommendations to the Head of School. The Sabbatical Leave Committee consists of the Head of School, Deputy Head of School (Chair), Directors of Institute, Director of Graduate School (or Deputy),  Director of Teaching  (or Deputy), Director of Professional Services (or Deputy), and professoriate of the School.

Duties

Duties which a person on sabbatical should not be expected to undertake:

• lecturing; tutoring; demonstrating; setting or marking coursework;
• setting, marking or moderating exams (except for those associated with courses for which s/he had responsibility prior to the sabbatical);
• undergraduate project supervision;
• MSc project supervision - (except for those projects for which s/he was first or second supervisor prior to the sabbatical);
• attendance at School committees; administrative duties such as course organising, convening committees, audit/QA/REF activities, sitting on University committees, etc.;
• exam invigilation; teaching lab development/management; staff training; internal PhD examining; student induction; student advising and directing of studies; new staff mentoring.

Staff on sabbatical should still read and respond to messages from their line manager and engage with other employment-related tasks such as completing the TAS.

Periods of Leave

Except for grade 7 and 8 staff and staff with teaching contracts, one semester sabbaticals will be discouraged, as academic responsibilities are designed around a one-year period and leave periods of one semester off-load more than one semester's work on other staff members.

Conversely, sabbaticals of more than one year will only be granted in exceptional circumstances, no matter how much service the applicant has accrued. Staff are strongly encouraged to take sabbaticals at roughly the expected frequency. Sabbatical requests that go against this rule are likely to be refused.

Criteria

Sabbaticals can be used for teaching, research or knowledge exchange activity with each case being considered on merit.  There are no absolute criteria (apart from meeting the University regulations) but the following aspects will be taken into account: timeliness, significance, novelty and feasibility of research plans; likely output in form of research papers, research grant applications, etc; amount of unpaid leave taken recently; re-establishment of research after period of heavy administrative or teaching load; practicality of covering the applicant's duties.

Fellowships

In principle, academic staff accrue the usual amount of sabbatical entitlement while they are on fellowships. However, the sabbatical committee will give a lower priority to sabbatical applications from staff who were on fellowships. This is because sabbaticals are primarily designed to provide relief from administrative and teaching duties, and fellowship holders already enjoy such relief while on fellowships, making it harder to make a convincing case for further relief. At the same time, the School would like to encourage staff who are on fellowships to continue engaging with, and contributing to, the School's activities. Therefore, for a sabbatical application to be successful even though it is substantially based on time accrued during a fellowship, the applicant should have undertaken activities from the following list while on fellowship:

• Limited amounts of classroom teaching (e.g., small courses, or parts of a course)
• Supervision of MSc or undergraduate projects
• Management or leadership activities commensurate with grade that benefit the School or the University
• Industry engagement activities that benefit the School or the University
• Outreach activities that benefit the School or the University

The number and type of activities undertaken should be commensurate with the duration of the fellowship. The sabbatical application should refer to them.

For the purposes of this policy, the term "fellowship" covers all cases where the applicant is bought out to do research, independent of funding source.