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“Family in focus” – RMU Talk Series

Online Talk on Balancing Family and Research

2026/05/21

How can we reconcile family, a scientific career, studies and professional life? Many university members are faced with this question – and frequently, the challenges associated with this are not even directly visible.

In the RMU online talk series “Familie im Fokus – Vereinbarkeit in der Forschung”, researchers from the Rhine-Main Universities and associated parties discuss various facets of reconcilability and provide insights into current studies, real-life experiences and perspectives.

Following its successful start in the winter semester 2025/26, the RMU online talk series „Fokus Familie – Vereinbarkeit in der Forschung“ will be continued in the summer semester 2026.

The one-hour online talks are aimed at anyone who is dealing with questions of reconcilability as well as at teachers, administrative staff and other university members who, through knowledge and sharing of experiences, can be supported on these topics from an informed and sensitive perspective.

The talks will be held via Zoom. Language: German

We would appreciate your registration, but drop-in participation is also permitted.

Prof. Daniela Grunow | Goethe University Frankfurt

Reconciling job and family is still a massive challenge for parents. At the same time, there are different societal expectations as to how both can be adequately reconciled, resulting in role conflicts among parents and the feeling that it is impossible to please everyone. The talk explores this ideological area of tension and shows how 'gender attitudes' affect gender-based sharing of tasks.

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Dr. Ann-Christin Bächmann | Institute for Employment Research (IAB)

How do married couples distribute parental leave and which consequences does taking parental leave have on my and/or my partner's return to work? The talk explores the length of parental leave of mothers and fathers in German, how tasks are shared by couples and what medium- and long-term effects taking parental leave as on the employment history of mothers and fathers. The talk also addresses the impact support offers for employees have on whether they take parental leave or not.

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Dr. Lena Eckert und Dr. Anne Freese | icp – institute for critique and practice gGmbH; Netzwerk Mutterschaft und Wissenschaft

The pilot study “Care und Unfair” examines disadvantages for parents and caregiving relatives in the German external funding sector, a field that has a significant impact on the academic career but on which, to date, there is hardly any research. At the same time, diversity is considered a basic requirement for good science.

The authors want to make discriminatory tendencies visible and to draw attention to the urgent need to counter the risk of losing an entire generation of scientists, in particular due to the so-called “corona gap”.

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