Report Town Hall Meeting - Sleepless in Academia

Sleepless in Academia: Responding to New Academic Parents’ Challenges Project funded by UYA came to a closure on April 12, 2023 with a Town Hall Meeting.

Our meeting included a panel debate by our colleagues Adrien Melquiond, Jocelyn Ballantyne, Mara Yerkes and Verena Seibel who did not shy away from sharing their experiences and ideas on how to create a more supportive working environment for new parents at Utrecht University.

We also held a workshop with colleagues from different faculties to co-develop and refine our recommendations for more team- and care-friendly policies and practices. All in all, with our project, we call for more attention to colleagues’ diverse care responsibilities, life-course dependent factors that challenge work-life dynamics and treating teams as a whole when developing policies. We are thankful to all (sleepless) colleagues who have joined our dialogue sessions and truly shaped the outcomes of this project!