Students and employees with family responsibilities have been particularly impacted by the effects of the corona pandemic due to reduction in or loss of childcare and the burden of caring for and schooling their children at home. To help families, the University is providing support services for (doctoral) students and employees in technical support, administration as well as for researchers and teaching staff. The support will also be continued in the summer semester of 2022
If you have any questions the Family Service is here to help you!
Please send an e-mail to babysitting@uni-bielefeld.de. We will send you a contact list with a list of babysitters, which also contains information about their qualifications and experience.
After that, you can contact the desired childminder personally.
Childminding can be undertaken as a ‘mini-job’ or on a self-employed basis. For more information, please contact the Minijobzentrale.
Please note: Babysitting is not allowed if you are sick or if you and / or the child are in quarantine!
If you need further information, please contact the Family Service.
Students with parental responsibilities can apply for reimbursement of the costs of additional childcare under the following circumstances:
Please note:
Procedure for reimbursement of childcare costs for (doctoral) students:
Babysitting can be carried out as a ‘mini-job’ or on a self-employed basis. You can find out more detailed information from the Minijobzentrale.
Please note: Babysitting is not allowed if you are sick or if you and / or the child are in quarantine!
If you need further information, please contact the Family Service.
Here you can find information on data protection
The university would like to reduce the burden on teachers with a high teaching load and family responsibilities in times of the corona pandemic when preparing and/or teaching courses. You can apply for support for WS 20/21 under the following conditions:
Per applicant, you can apply for an assistant for a maximum of 10 hours/week and maximum 5 months or apply for a supplementary teaching contract. Supplementary teaching contracts allow for an overall reduction in administrative workload and examination responsibilities, but do not reduce the teaching load.
Please submit the application for the wintersemester 2022/2023 informally via the administrative office of your faculty. The applications can still be submitted beyond 08.08.2022.
The University would like to enable young researchers with family responsibilities during the corona pandemic to have more time for their research (by supporting research and relieving them of teaching duties). You can apply for support if you meet the following conditions:
Per applicant, you can apply for an assistant for a maximum of 10 hours/week and maximum 5 months or apply for a supplementary teaching contract. Supplementary teaching contracts allow for an overall reduction in administrative workload and examination responsibilities, but do not reduce the teaching load.
Please submit the application for the winter semester 2022/2023 informally via the administrative office of your faculty. The applications can still be submitted beyond 08.08.2022.
The law on academic contracts in higher education and research (WissZeitVG) has been amended in the light of the disruption caused by the Coronavirus pandemic to academic careers. This will to allow researchers to apply for an extension of up to 12 months to their academic contract, so they do not run out of time in which to qualify. The Rectorate recommends that researchers make use of the possibility to extend academic contracts.
So as to ease the burden on young researchers as early as possible, applications to extend academic agreements should be made well in advance, rather than shortly before the research time stipulated on the contract is due to end.
Further information is available here
To compensate for disadvantages caused by the coronavirus pandemic incurred by junior professors and tenure-track professors with family responsibilities, the faculties are recommended to:
For further information, please contact the Department of Human Resources and Organization (P/O).
Corona-related periods of childcare or caring for relatives should be taken into account in the evaluation of academic performance (e.g. in job openings and interviews, appointing professorships, and in so called “Leistungsbezüge” etc.) ’Corona-family leave’ should be treated in the same way as parental leave.
If you have any further questions please contact the Family Service.
At various levels (starting with, for example, applicants, Department FFT, Vice-rector for Research, HRK-German Rectors’ Conference), efforts should be made to ensure that third-party funders provide additional funds for the extension of employment contracts and that corona family periods are taken into account when assessing applications for third-party funding (see measure on ‘preventing corona career setbacks’).