The Retention Package

This component of the RDP program supports the formation of networks that enable faculty members to achieve a better balance between their research and important life events that leave them with the responsibility of temporarily raising their children alone. Female faculty members at Nagoya University had already taken steps in this direction in 2013 by organizing a network called the Researchers’ Community for Child Care Support at Nagoya University. The main purpose of this initiative is to support the creation of an environment that enables researchers with temporary solo parenting responsibilities to fully exercise their professional abilities.
Under the program, this community has been established on a foundation of university-wide support, with a variety of new measures in support offered to help such faculty members balance the demands of research and childcare.
Furthermore, to create an environment that enables the continuation of research by faculty members undergoing life events that face them with temporary solo parenting responsibilities, the community has been expanded in scope to include support for not only female but also male faculty members, as well as households raising multiple newborns and faculty members caring for spouses or children with mental or physical disabilities.

Nagoya University has established two daycare facilities—the Asunaro Nursery School and Cosmos Nursery School—to help faculty members, university employees, and students engaged in childcare to better balance that responsibility with the demands of their jobs or research. Both facilities strive to provide a daycare environment that nurtures the abilities and sensitivities of the children in their care while providing their guardians with the peace of mind to focus on their research and job duties.

The hours of daycare offered by public afterschool childcare facilities are shorter than those provided by nursery schools operating under the extended daycare framework. For this reason, many working parents face the prospect of having to quit their jobs or change to different job formats or shifts with different working hours when their children enroll in elementary school. In an effort to overcome this “first-grade hurdle” and help parents balance the demands of work and family, in 2007, Nagoya University became the first university in Japan to establish a permanent afterschool childcare facility (Poppins Afterschool). As a daycare facility that fully harnesses the physical and intellectual assets of the university and enjoys support from the university’s faculty members, employees, and students, as well as the local community, Poppins Afterschool has developed and implemented an array of programs aimed at stimulating the intellectual curiosity of children and cultivating their desire to learn.

Nagoya University provides support for the care of sick and convalescent children in coordination with healthcare institutions. Parents of sick children are eligible for this support if deemed appropriate on the basis of a preliminary diagnosis by a physician or the university hospital’s pediatric ward.

Nagoya University also issues babysitter discount coupons to help university faculty members and employees better balance the demands of work and childcare. This coupon provides its users a discount on the daily rate for babysitter services. It is available to university faculty members and employees (including part-time staff) who, due to extenuating family circumstances, would not be able to work unless they utilize the services of babysitters.

Our on-campus Cosmos Nursery School and afterschool childcare facility offer childcare services to those who request it during the university admission exams. This service is available to university researchers and administrative staff who supervise the admission exams and are unable to care for their children due to extenuating household circumstances.