The University of Münster – A certified family-friendly university

Family-friendly policies at the university are designed to cater for all current forms of family life. Rather than focusing on formal structures, they support staff and students who take on family responsibilities such as bringing up children, providing care and looking after relatives in their day-to-day lives.

The University of Münster has been a recognised “family-friendly university” since its initial certification in June 2008.
As part of the auditing process and in collaboration with all university groups, administrators have implemented many minor and major changes to improve the compatibility of professional or academic pursuits and family life for staff and students at the University.

In the current re-certification process, the University of Münster aims to demonstrate its continued commitment to being a family-friendly university. The University wants to replace the notion of “working and studying despite having children” with the more positive idea of “working and studying while raising children”, and thereby anchor and continue improving family-friendly conditions in the work, research and academic environment.

We wish to involve all members of the University, i.e. students and staff, in the “Family Certification” project. We regard the process as a means of optimising the family-friendly structures at the University of Münster.

We invite you to share your ideas and suggestions with us, or tell us about your positive and negative experiences. Please help us improve family friendliness and ensure that necessary changes are put in place throughout the University of Münster.

The focus of the re-certification process you can find in the
short profile. [de]