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Student Support Services offers help and guidance on a variety of aspects, including health and wellbeing and finance. While these services may seem targeted to undergraduate students, they offer a full range of support to PGRs.

In addition to their online presence on Student Hub, they have a physical presence on campus too. The Student Support Centres on each campus can offer support with enrolment, signpost how to receive support on specialist areas (i.e. disability, faith and chaplaincy, mental health), and assist with any issues relating to your NTU student card.

If you are unsure how the services on offer relate to you or how to access them as a PGR, either email Student Support or visit them at one of the centres.

The Disability and Inclusion team coordinate support and access arrangements for disabled students and students with specific learning difficulties. They work with academic colleagues, University services and external agencies.

If you have been diagnosed with or disability, we highly recommend you engage with the service to ensure that you have the support you need in place. This can include putting an access statement in place and adding disabled access to buildings on campus to your student card.

You may also be entitled to the government's  Disability and Inclusion Services can help you check if you’re eligible, support your application and undertake your assessment.

The Disability and Inclusion team can also offer support and guidance if you feel like you may be dealing with an undiagnosed disability, such as dyslexia, autism, or ADHD. If you would like to speak to a member of the team, you can contact them at disability.support@ntu.ac.uk.

It is vital to remember that while your doctorate is an important and sizeable project you are undertaking, it is not your life.

NTU has a sick leave and annual leave allowance for all doctoral candidates, which can be applied for . We encourage all PGR to talk to their supervisors about their planned leave and use it to take time away from the PhD. Rest is a very important part of building resilience, and for creating a healthy balance between your life and the doctorate.

Pay attention to the time you spend sitting in front of a screen, reading text, or working in a lab, and remind yourself to take regular physical breaks – stretch, walk around if you can, step away for a little while to go outside and get some air.

The key word here is balance: there is life around and beyond the doctorate, and making time to care for yourself, physically, mentally, and emotionally is the best thing you can do to ensure that your valuable contributions to your field can be created and shared.

We understand that the doctoral journey can be exciting and terrifying in equal measure. It is, after all, a journey of discovery and, by its nature, you will be venturing into uncharted territory; asking questions that no one has asked before and finding ways to answer them.

Whether you are beginning your doctorate straight after your undergraduate or your Masters degree or coming back to university after several decades building a career, you will almost certainly be used to smaller projects, more regular deadlines and a network of fellow students or colleagues who are all more or less working together in a similar area.

If you are lucky enough to join a big research lab, you might still feel some of that closeness and camaraderie with others in your research group. On the other hand, you might be the only person you know, apart from your supervisory team, who is working on your topic. It’s easy to feel a bit alone and for the journey at times to seem slightly overwhelming.

However, please keep in mind the following:

• You have joined a vast community of like-minded people whose doctoral projects are as individual and unique as they are, but who are on the same journey as you. Every one of you will be curious by nature, grappling with some tough concepts for the first time, mapping your field, trying to understand the world a little better and make a contribution to knowledge.  Making contact with other postgraduate researchers through events and workshops, social media, online groups, networks and societies is a really important way to find your place in this community and to begin to develop your academic identity.
• You have all the tools you need for your doctoral journey. From a practical perspective, your supervisory team will point the way. Your Director of Doctoral Programmes can help if things get a little off track. The SharePoint site and the drop-in surgeries run by the Doctoral School admin team can guide you through the monitoring processes. There is a comprehensive programme of training and development available to you that will not only ensure you have the skills you need to do your research but that also gives you the opportunity to share the challenges you are facing with others, to get new ideas and to be a part of the wider NTU doctoral community.
• You are more important than your doctoral project. It’s easy sometimes to imagine that you and your project are so inextricably linked that you cannot walk away, take some leave and find some distance. Rest, relaxation and time to reflect are a really important part of the cognitive development required to complete your research project. You will be encountering many new ideas and you will need the space to turn these around in your head.  Work-life balance including sleep, time with friends and having fun will not only help your mental health and wellbeing but will also help your research.

All NTU Doctoral Candidates are entitled to 30 days of annual leave each academic year, in addition to Bank Holidays. This should be used to take a break from your studies. Attending a conference or a placement, for example, is part of your doctoral study, and therefore doesn’t require you to book annual leave.

It is important that you take your annual leave each year, and that you factor it into your research plans to make sure you give yourself time for rest and recuperation. You can log your annual leave on the , so that your supervisors are aware.

If you become unwell at any point during your doctoral study, then it’s important to report any periods of illness to your supervisory team. You can do this by recording leave on the and completing to be emailed to doctoralschool@ntu.ac.uk. If you are sick for a few days in a one-off instance, you may choose not to formally report it, but where ill health may influence your ability to meet a deadline or you have prolonged or repeated periods of illness then it is advisable to log these. That way, if you need a Suspension of Studies, an NEC or an Extension at any point, there is clear evidence on your record.

If you are in receipt of an NTU stipend or bursary and have completed your initial six-month period of study, you are able to take some paid time out from your studies due to ill health.

Pay and time off become effective after the six-month date, with the policy effective from day one of study, but the entitlement to pay commences after six months.

If you become unwell, in excess of seven calendar days, and are unable to continue with your studies for a period of time, you will need to provide a medical certificate from your doctor or medical adviser to certify the illness. Providing medical evidence has been received, award payments will continue to be paid for any single period of absence of up to 13 calendar weeks in any 12-calendar month rolling period of the academic year, subject to certain criteria being met.

For the full details and terms of PGR Sick Leave for NTU funded candidates, If you are funded by an external body or Doctoral Training Programme, they will have their own policy and terms.

If you have had to take an absence due to long term sickness while studying at NTU, you are eligible to take advantage of the phased return to study scheme. This option is available to you in agreement with their supervisory team, Director of Doctoral Programmes (DDP) and in consultation with the Doctoral School and Student Support Services.

A phased return can be a combination of:

• amended study and associated duties
• altered hours of work
• reasonable workplace adaptations.

When you are ready to return, an initial meeting should be set up by your Director of Studies with your supervisory team and your DDP. The Doctoral School and Student Support Services may be invited to the meeting should they be required.

At this meeting, the possibility of making reasonable temporary adjustments to your project will be discussed, and you and your team will need to agree that you are in a position to return to your research. You will likely be asked to provide a fitness to work notification from a GP, or similar evidence.

The full outline of reasonable adjustments and the conditions can be found in the .

Doctoral candidates are entitled to 52 weeks of maternity or shared parental leave. The first 26 weeks should be paid at the full stipend rate, pro-rated as necessary for part-time doctoral candidates. If you become pregnant during your doctoral study, please discuss your plans with your Director of Studies and complete a and a , both to be emailed to the Doctoral School.

The following 13 weeks should be paid at a level commensurate with statutory maternity pay. The final 13 weeks are not paid.

Partners are entitled to up to 10 days of paid Ordinary Paternity Leave on a full stipend. Partners may be entitled to up to 50 weeks of Shared Parental Leave; this may include paid and unpaid leave, depending on the individual circumstances, any paid leave should be at full stipend.

Adoption leave should be granted on the same basis as maternity leave.

There is no qualifying period for maternity, paternity, adoption or shared parental leave. Additionally, stipend end dates should be updated to reflect the period of leave.

While recognising that doctoral candidate are not employees, the maternity/paternity/shared/adoption leave should be calculated on the same basis as an employee with an employment contract.

if you are taking Parental Leave, you might also need to take a Suspension of Studies. See the full for full details.

In addition to the Doctoral Education, Training and Development programme, there are a number of services across NTU to help support you with your research and academic writing skills.

NTU Library offers with a member of the Learning and Teaching team to support on academic writing, and the Library Research team also offers one-to-one support and advice on finding information, data management, and reference management software.

NTU has access to a number of apps that can help you undertake and manage your research, as well as the planning and writing of your thesis.

Access statements are provided by Student Support Services for doctoral candidates to ensure that their needs are understood and accommodated over the course of their doctoral study.

Candidates with medical evidence for the following are eligible to request an access statement:

• Neurodiversity
• A Specific Learning Difference such as Dyslexia or Dyspraxia
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC)
• A physical or sensory disability or a long-term medical condition such as MS or Fibromyalgia
• A mental health condition such as anxiety or depression

A doctoral candidate , or give their supervisor permission to make a referral on their behalf.

The access statement enables reasonable adjustments to support candidates whose disability may fluctuate and impact on aspects of their progress. Discuss with your supervisory team how the recommendations made could be incorporated into your supervision and  discuss any potential difficulties with meeting a particular progression and monitoring deadline.

Access statements can also be taken into account when arranging the viva. Including adjustments to the room such as level of lighting, rest breaks or additional time to answer questions or take notes of questions being asked at the time to help with formulating answers.