The FemChem Identity and Diversity team needs your thoughts and experiences for a new initiative towards pregnancy and parental leave.
A significant challenge for women starting and pursuing their scientific career is to balance pregnancy and parental leaves with their professional advancement. Based on the research group, funding type, and the personal situation of the researcher, high disparities exist in the handling of pregnancy and parental leaves.
Thus, we would like to collect your experiences at/or outside TU Wien. Whatever your position is – PhD, post-doc, supervisor, etc. – we would be grateful to receive your statement – thus, we encourage you to distribute this email. The information exchanged will not be shared outside the FemChem Diversity team.
Specifically, we are interested in topis such as:
- Announcement of pregnancy/ parental leave: how was it done? To whom? What reactions did it generate?
- Impact on the employment situation: researcher situation at the time of announcement? Was the contract prolonged/ suspended/ extended?
- Laboratory access/ research activities: did pregnancy/breastfeeding impacted accesses to the laboratory? How was this handled, which solutions were put in place?
You can contact us through the email address: div_id_femchem@list.tuwien.ac.at
Or personally contact any member of the Diversity team you feel most comfortable speaking to, and you can address us in English or German. You can find our names following this link: https://femchem.chemie.tuwien.ac.at/?page_id=75
Your experiences will help us define which actions should be proposed to the faculty to improve the situation.
Thank you for helping us shape the future of our faculty.
The FemChem Identity and Diversity team