Academic families are a new joint initiative with the school starting in the 2025-26 academic year aimed at bringing together students of all years in the School of Informatics.

Each family will consist of ten academic children from the first year student group and two academic parents from UG2-UG5.

Why should you sign up to be a parent?

You’ll get to participate in exclusive academic family events funded by the University
You’ll have the chance to connect with academic staff and help shape student experience at the School of Informatics
You’ll create new bonds with incoming students and fellow parents

What to expect from academic families:

Once all parent sign up have been confirmed, you’ll receive a welcome email, including a welcome pack which will contain all you need to know about academic families, points of contact, and guidelines on time commitment and events.
In Week 1 we will hold the first Academic Family event of the year, where you will meet your co parent and your children. It’ll be an action packed night: with games, trivia, quizzes and most importantly, free food and beer. This event will be organised by Academic Family staff, you do not need to do anything other than attend.
After the first event, you should have established your main method of communicating with your children.
Around this time, you can expect your academic to get in contact, they’ll be there to help organise events and answer questions.
Between this time and the end of the semester, you’ll be encouraged to organise your own event with your co parent. This can be anything like a pub crawl, coffee, lunch, a potluck etc. This time, you and your co parent will be in charge of organising the event. You can also make this a multi family event by inviting other families, and all parents can work together to organise.
Also between this time and the end of the semester, your nominated academic will be in touch to organise an event with you and other families. You do not need to organise anything for this event, it will be done by the academic, but you should try your best to attend.

As a parent you'll be expected to take on the following responsibilities:

Attend the first event in week 1 to meet your family. Highly important as this will establish how well the academic family experience will go for you for the rest of the year.

- - Establish a common ground of communication on an agreed platform of choice. Popular options include whatsapp and instagram. If you prefer, you can make a bigger family group chat with another family or two instead.
  - Circulate event news and updates within your family, wherever possible.
  - Attending the academic family events whenever you can and making an effort with your family to establish a comfortable environment.
  - Working as a team unit with your family during events.
  - Maintaining contact with cohorts throughout the year.
  - Ensuring you have fun throughout the whole experience.
  - Organise an event with your family once a semester of an activity of your choice.

To find out more, please reach out to us at s2541956@ed.ac.uk

Your data

We will store the data in your response until the end of the 2025-26 academic year.

Your name, student number, year, and programme.

We will use these to verify that you are a student in the School of Informatics and are eligible for becoming an academic parent. We will also use your programme details to match you with other students in your academic family.

Your nationality, identity and preferences

We will use this information to group you into an academic family that best suits your interest and background. Where possible, we will ensure no participant is left isolated, but also enable families to be of diverse backgrounds and interests.