Co-Founding of the Interdisciplinary Network ELTERNSCHAFT & WISSENSCHAFT
Co-Founding of the Interdisciplinary Network ELTERNSCHAFT & WISSENSCHAFT
Our institute is among the founding institutions of ELTERNSCHAFT & WISSENSCHAFT, a research and knowledge-transfer network dedicated to childhood, parenthood, and the conditions that enable children to thrive and families to develop sustainably. Conceived as a collaborative platform, the initiative responds to societal transformations that have placed children and families at the center of questions of social justice, institutional responsibility, and technological change—while too often treating them as fragmented issues across research, policy, and practice.
The network connects scholarship across law, social sciences, education, health and public health, economics, information systems, cognitive science, cultural studies, and the humanities, and integrates expertise from professional practice and technology-oriented fields. Its core purpose is to systematically link theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspectives on childhood and parenthood, with particular attention to societal diversity, institutional frameworks, and the accelerating digitalisation of everyday life and decision-making environments.
Why this network now
Research on child development has advanced substantially in recent years, sharpening understanding of sensitive periods in early childhood, the role of co-regulation and attachment processes, and the diversity of family forms and care arrangements. The evidence base has also expanded regarding the distinct developmental contributions of fathers and other caregiving figures, and regarding how parenthood itself reshapes adult lives—identity, health, biography, relationships, time resources, social participation, and professional trajectories.
At the same time, interdisciplinary debates have intensified around children’s rights, responsibility, care, autonomy, reproduction, and family policy. These discussions increasingly intersect with a second, rapidly developing domain: digital technologies and artificial intelligence. Platform-based infrastructures, algorithmic decision systems, and AI-supported applications in education, diagnostics, and everyday parenting environments create new possibilities while raising pressing questions about protection, participation, ethics, accountability, and regulation.
Against this backdrop, ELTERNSCHAFT & WISSENSCHAFT builds shared “knowledge spaces” in which key concepts are refined, methods are made transparent, and interdisciplinary perspectives are productively integrated. The aim is not merely to expand research outputs, but to consolidate evidence in forms that provide robust orientation and can become effective within institutions and policy processes.
A dual focus: children’s rights and parent-supportive conditions
The network is guided by a dual child- and parent-centred perspective. Children require protection, reliable relationships, developmentally appropriate environments, and the effective realisation of their rights in everyday contexts. Parents—irrespective of gender, socioeconomic position, cultural background, family form, relationship status, or professional role—require predictable, supportive, and legally secure conditions that make caregiving feasible and enable deep, continuous, and resilient relationships with their children.
This dual orientation reflects a central commitment: children’s rights and parent-friendly structures are mutually reinforcing. Where parents face stigma, precarity, or institutional disadvantage, children’s developmental conditions are correspondingly affected. Strengthening families therefore requires both child-rights-based standards and institutional arrangements that recognise care as a core social function.
Working structure and thematic priorities
ELTERNSCHAFT & WISSENSCHAFT operates as a platform for collaborative research, thematic working groups, project-based partnerships, and shared standards—including commitments related to Open Science, data ethics, and responsible use of digital technologies. Digital childhood, algorithmic environments, and AI-enabled applications are treated not as peripheral issues, but as integral dimensions of contemporary and future parenthood.
The network’s thematic scope includes, among others:
early childhood development, attachment, and co-regulation
family diversity and evolving care arrangements
children’s rights and institutionally actionable standards
multicultural childhoods, transnational family realities, and multilingual development
digital childhood, platform environments, and algorithmic decision-making
ethical governance of developmental, health, and digital data
evidence synthesis and responsible science communication
Parents in Academia: Strengthening Dual Responsibilities
A distinctive component of the network addresses the situation of parents who are scientists. Academic careers are often characterised by mobility requirements, temporary contracts, competitive funding structures, publication pressures, and demanding teaching and administrative obligations—frequently coinciding with phases in which children require particular stability and presence.
ELTERNSCHAFT & WISSENSCHAFT works to ensure that parenthood within academia is recognised as a legitimate and integral dimension of professional life rather than as a deviation from an assumed norm of uninterrupted productivity. This includes engagement with university governance structures to promote transparent and fair evaluation criteria, predictable career processes, family-sensitive scheduling, and the reduction of structural bias across all career stages.
The objective is to demonstrate that scientific excellence, caregiving responsibility, and family life are not mutually exclusive. Sustainable research cultures depend on institutional conditions that acknowledge care work without stigma and that respect the rights and needs of the children of scholars.
Building sustainable research and transfer infrastructure
A further priority is to strengthen academic conditions under which research on childhood and parenthood can be pursued responsibly and sustainably, including the realities faced by scholars who are parents. The network contributes to the development of fairer institutional frameworks, reduces bias in academic evaluation and career progression, and supports viable trajectories for early-career researchers through mentoring, peer support, and methodological training.
ELTERNSCHAFT & WISSENSCHAFT is designed as a durable infrastructure that connects scientific excellence, digital competence, and societal responsibility—supporting the long-term goal of improving the conditions under which children grow up well and parenthood can be shaped in ways that are equitable, resilient, and future-oriented.
Dr. Soheil Human is the Director of ELTERNSCHAFT & WISSENSCHAFT, and Dr. Edward Bernroider contributes to the network as a member of the Advisory Board.