Doing a doctorate with a Family
A central concern of TUM is to provide family-friendly structures to support the compatibility of family, career, and research. With the Family Service, TUM has therefore created a service that is customized to the needs of TUM members.
TUM Family Service
The TUM Family Service offers comprehensive advice on childcare options at and outside TUM, as well as on holiday childcare and leisure programs during the Bavarian school holidays. On the TUM Family Service website, you will also find an overview of breastfeeding and nappy-changing rooms at the Munich, Garching, and Freising-Weihenstephan campuses, as well as where you can borrow play kits.
Are you doing a doctorate at TUM/would you like to do a doctorate at TUM and have questions about how to combine your doctorate with caring for your family members? The TUM Family Service also provides comprehensive advice on this topic and offers extensive information, e.g., on care and family care leave, relief options, and care advice centers.
Greater Munich is one of the most attractive regions in Germany and Europe due to its political, social, and economic stability. Excellent medical care, including the internationally renowned university hospitals of TUM and LMU, outstanding international educational institutions, excellent public transport & infrastructure, as well as a multitude of parks, festivals, and cultural offerings, make Munich and the surrounding area a popular place to live for families. However, as with accommodation, Munich's popularity with families has a downside, as nursery, kindergarten and pre-school places for toddlers and younger children are in high demand and hard to find.
TUM is aware of this fact and actively promotes the compatibility of family, career, and research and offers its members at the Munich, Garching, and Freising-Weihenstephan campuses childcare facilities directly on or near the campus. The childcare facilities of the Studierendenwerk are reserved for students and enrolled doctoral candidates. Therefore, if you are interested in a childcare facility run by the Studierendenwerk, you should enroll at TUM during your doctorate. Remember, enrollment is voluntary for TUM doctoral candidates and is possible for a maximum of eight semesters. Please note that you must be enrolled for the entire period your child visits the childcare facility. Doctoral candidates who are employed as research staff at TUM can also apply for childcare places in the TUM childcare facilities, which have places available for TUM employees.
In addition to these regular childcare options, there is also the possibility of flexible childcare in the child and family rooms in our TUM Schools. These child and family rooms offer TUM members a place of retreat when they are accompanied to work by their children. Some Schools also offer their employees, researchers, and students flexible childcare on an hourly basis by external care providers, for example, during off-peak hours. On the TUM Family Service website, you will find an overview of the child and family rooms at TUM.
Another focus of the TUM Family Service is to provide support in caring for relatives. Accordingly, the colleagues at TUM Family Services are on hand to answer any questions you may have on the subject of caring for relatives and to provide you with helpful support services. TUM also cooperates with the external agency awo lifebalance. In addition to comprehensive advice on all forms of care and support in finding facilities or care providers, you will also receive information on relevant legal regulations. You can also find further information on this on the TUM Family Service website.
Do you have School-specific questions about balancing research and family life? Our diversity contact points in the Schools offer a wide range of information on family and diversity-friendly infrastructure, offers, and services in the respective schools:
TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology
https://www.cit.tum.de/cit/school/organisation/talent-management-diversity/
TUM School of Engineering and Design
https://www.ed.tum.de/ed/ueber-uns/diversitaet/
TUM School of Life Sciences
https://www.ls.tum.de/ls/ueber-uns/gender-diversity/
TUM School of Management
https://www.mgt.tum.de/about/diversity
TUM School of Medicine and Health
https://www.mh.tum.de/mh/talent-management-and-diversity/diversity-equal-opportunity/familienservice/
TUM School of Natural Sciences
https://www.nat.tum.de/nat/wir/chancen/
TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology
https://www.sot.tum.de/sot/school/gender-diversity/
TUM Campus Straubing
https://www.cs.tum.de/campus-straubing/gender-diversity/karriere-familie/
Like students, doctoral candidates (provided they are enrolled) can also take a leave of absence in the event of pregnancy/maternity leave, parental leave, or caring for close relatives. The leave of absence must be applied for in due time and form at the TUM Center for Study and Teaching - Application and Enrollment Department. If you have missed the deadline for a leave of absence for your desired semester, a leave of absence for the semester in question is no longer possible.
A leave of absence is possible from the time the pregnancy is established, provided that the deadline for applying for a leave of absence in the semester in question is met. The maternity pass with the personal data of the person and the expected date of delivery serves as proof.
Fathers can only take a leave of absence if they can submit their child's birth certificate in due time and form. If the child is born after the deadline for submitting proof, a leave of absence is only possible for the following semester.
Doctoral candidates can take a leave of absence for a maximum of 6 semesters per person (not per child) due to pregnancy/maternity leave and parental leave.
During a leave of absence, your student status is maintained so that you can continue to use the student benefits and services. However, semesters on leave do not count as semesters of study. Your "enrollment clock" is stopped during a semester of leave and only continues to run when your semester(s) of leave has ended.
Further information on leave of absence, application documents, and application deadlines can be found on the website of the TUM Center for Study and Teaching.
A leave of absence is also possible for doctoral candidates who are caring for their immediate family members. A leave of absence due to the care of a family member is possible for up to two semesters, providing the flexibility you may need during this time.
During a leave of absence, your student status is maintained so that you can continue to use the student benefits and services. However, semesters on leave do not count as semesters of study. Your "enrollment clock" is stopped during a semester of leave and only continues to run when your semester(s) of leave has ended.
Further information on leave of absence, application documents, and application deadlines can be found on the website of the TUM Center for Study and Teaching.
Offers of the TUM Graduate School
At the TUM Graduate School, we support our doctoral candidates in balancing doctoral research and family life. We have created various support programs and measures that are continuously adapted to the needs of our doctoral candidates.
Family-friendly events and transferable skills training
In order to enable all doctoral candidates to participate in our events and transferable skills courses, important information events such as Half-Way There or Before Departure, as well as around 50% of our transferable skills courses, take place virtually. Doctoral candidates who are unable to attend the three-day mandatory TUM-GS kick-off seminar in person due to childcare, caring for relatives, or other special personal circumstances have the opportunity to participate in one of the two virtual kick-off seminars designed especially for this target group.
Highlight: Scientific Writing Retreat with professional childcare
Balancing family and academic work can be a challenge for doctoral candidates with children. The process of writing a publication or dissertation, in particular, can present doctoral candidates with a variety of challenges that lead to a lack of motivation and increased procrastination. The 4-day Scientific Writing Retreat provides strategies for planning scientific papers efficiently and gives participants the opportunity to make progress on their manuscripts under professional guidance and writing coaching and to benefit from the exchange with other writers. As a special offer for doctoral candidates with children (3-10 years), the writing workshop takes place during the Bavarian summer school holidays. While the parents concentrate on their writing projects, their children are looked after by professional childcare providers in the immediate vicinity of the writing course on all four course days.
Financial support options
Doctoral candidates who want to carry out an internationalization activity abroad but have to expect significant additional costs due to their family situation and/or special needs can apply to the TUM-GS for two additional funding schemes tailored to their individual situation. Doctoral candidates whose doctorate has been delayed due to pregnancy, parental leave, childcare, serious chronic illness/impairment or caring for relatives are offered financial support in the form of the TUM-GS Diversity Degree Completion Grant.
To support doctoral candidates in balancing research and family life, the TUM Graduate School has introduced the TUM-GS Family Mobility Allowance, as a mobility scheme to support doctoral candidates during research stays abroad. The TUM-GS Family Mobility Allowance is a monthly allowance for immediate family members who accompany the doctoral candidate during his/her international research stay of at least 3 months.
The family allowance of 400 EUR/month is designed to financially support additional expenses caused by accompanying partner and/or underage child but can also be applied for other persons, e.g., parents, if the doctoral candidate requires extra care due to special health/mobility issues. Besides the 400 EUR/month, a further 200 EUR/month can be applied for each additional underage child. The TUM-GS Family Allowance can be applied for a maximum period of 6 months.
Further information on the application process and other TUM-GS mobility schemes can be found in the ‘Internationalization’ section.
The TUM-GS Diversity Supplement Travel Grant supports subject-specific stays abroad by doctoral candidates with family obligations and/or special health/other needs.
The Diversity Supplement Travel Grant is a supplement to the travel expenses incurred for family members (e.g. child(ren)) of doctoral candidates who absolutely must travel with the candidates due to special circumstances. Doctoral candidates who face significant additional costs when traveling due to physical disabilities or special needs can also apply for this supplement.
The doctoral candidate can apply for up to 500 euros per trip for the travel expenses actually incurred. Applications are submitted directly to the TUM-GS Management Office. Further information on the application process and other TUM-GS mobility schemes can be found in the ‘Internationalization’ section.
With the TUM-GS Diversity Degree Completion Grant, the TUM-GS supports doctoral candidates in every field of research during the final phase of the doctorate. This grant is meant to support doctoral candidates whose doctorate has been delayed due to pregnancy, maternal/parental leave, child care, severe illness/disability or by being a care of immediate family members.
Please note that delays in the doctoral process caused by the Coronavirus alone cannot be supported by the TUM-GS Diversity Degree Completion Grant.
The type of the grant varies according to your current source of funding (whether you are employed by TUM or are a scholarship holder).
More information can be found in the respective information sheets:
- Information for doctoral candidates with TUM employment
- Information for doctoral candidates without TUM employment (e.g., scholarship holders)
The TUM-GS Degree Completion Grant Application Form can be downloaded here.