Family
Dr Anja Vervoorts and her team attach great importance to a good family/work balance and offer a variety of projects, activities and initiatives to support this balance.
They are assisted in this by the Family Support Centre, which provides advice on all family-related issues and support in exceptional/emergency situations.
HHU has been working continuously for over a decade to optimise the balance between family and work/studies on campus. In 2014, HHU became one of the first universities to sign the “Familie in der Hochschule” (“Family Life and Academia”) Charter and, in 2019, became one of the first members of the “Familie in der Hochschule e. V.” association following its registration.
The Family Support Centre at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf is an advice and support centre for University students and employees looking to balance family and work or studies. The Family Support Centre would be pleased to agree a personal consultation session with you.
As a young female academic/scientist with family commitments, you face multiple burdens, which make it more difficult to have a successful academic career. The Central Equal Opportunities Officer supports the careers of female academics by financing childcare to enable you to complete an academic work.
In some cases, childcare may be necessary, for example when you need to participate in committee meetings, interviews, seminars, commissions, etc. The University offers its members a lot of services.
The programme is aimed at female early career researchers who have put their research projects on hold for a family phase and now wish to return to their academic career with the goal of achieving a professorship. The funding finances the applicant’s full-time or part-time position as a research associate for two years.
The Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz – WissZeitVG) stipulates that academic personnel may only be employed for a fixed term of max. 6 years per qualification phase.
But what if the working phase has to be interrupted due to bringing up a child or caring for relatives? Can maternity leave and parental leave periods be “added on”? And how does this affect the maximum duration of fixed-term employment mentioned above?
The Central Equal Opportunities Officer answers all these questions in her information document “Nachdienen nach WissZeitVG” (“Extensions to employment periods under the WissZeitVG”) (German only).
The Central Equal Opportunities Officer has set up the FamilyFund for female postdocs and postdoctoral researchers as well as female junior professors at HHU (excluding the Faculty of Medicine) as part of the Female Professors Program III. The funds serve to relieve the burden on female scientists at HHU who, in addition to research and teaching, also have child care (for children up to the age of 12 or school-age children with special support needs) and/or family care responsibilities and are thus exposed to multiple burdens.