Sanli talks to Verena Seibel, assistant professor at Utrecht university who has been in the lead of conducting a survey among assistant and associate professors for Utrecht Young Academy to evaluate how the new evaluation model of the Unviersity, TRIPLE, is perceived in practice. Their goal has been to provide input for improvements. 

The results reveal a mixed and offer a critical perspective. The TRIPLE model has strong potential to create a fairer and more inclusive recognition system. However, its current implementation is seen as unclear, uneven, and sometimes detrimental to well-being.

This is the second episode of our mini-series on execution of the Recognition and Rewards programme at Utrecht University.

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In this and the coming 2 episode, we will listen to 3 different experiences with the execution and outcomes of the reform programme at Utrecht University. 

My first interview is with Henk Kummeling, who was the rector magnificus and a member of the University board when the programme was rolled out. He is currently the chair of the board of CoARA, an international coalition on reforming research assessment.

In the next episode, we will hear from Verena Seibel, about her research at the Utrecht Young academy on the perception of young faculty members of the reform programme, and from Paul Boselie, Chief Open Science and the person in charge of executing the programme on behalf of the university board.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sanlifaez.substack.com

Why do we choose an academic career?

The answer to this question is different for every person, but if you ask me, we do not discuss it frequently enough, and perhaps not even reflect enough on it for ourselves.

In this episode, I re-air a conversation that I had seven years ago with neuroscientist Wim Otte. This conversation had a profound effect on my own perception of an academic career, and several topics that we discussed are still relevant to this day. I may even say that they are at the heart of the recognition and rewards programme: Why do we do what we do in the university? And what do success and academic achievement mean?  

Hear my 2018 conversation with Wim Otte. If you listen to the end, I have a surprise for you,

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One of the main pillars of the Dutch recognition and rewards program is to stimulate open science. But what does open science mean? Back in 2019, when the program started, open science was still an umbrella term covering many concepts from open access publishing to open source data and software, scientometrics, or citizen science.

The UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science was the first internationally accepted standard that provided an agreed definition, as well as a set of shared values and guiding principles for open science. The introduction to this recommendation reads: “Open science is a set of principles and practices that aim to make scientific research from all fields accessible to everyone for the benefits of scientists and society as a whole.” This Recommendation was adopted in 2021 by 193 countries, and so set a common standard for what it means to do open science.

I was very fortunate to get the chance of recording this interview with Dr. Ana Persic during her visit to the Netherlands for presenting a keynote talk for the national Open Science Festival. She told me how they could reach consensus on a coherent internationally accepted recommendation on such a broad topic, and how she thinks open science can help societies to tackle complex social, environmental, and economic challenges and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sanlifaez.substack.com

The Netherlands Recognition and Rewards program is run by a coalition of universities and funding agencies, each of which have chosen to give this programme a different flavor.

At Leiden university the recognition and rewards and open science programmes are two parts of the Academia in Motion initiative. According to the initiative website they want to “support the culture change towards Leiden University as an open knowledge community”.

In this episode I talk to Marieke Adriaanse, who is a member of the steering board of the Academia in Motion programme. She is also a professor of behavioral interventions in population health management, and hence knows a lot about behaviour change and its complexities. Before moving to Leiden, she was also co-chair of the recognition and rewards programme at Utrecht University. I approached Marieke because of her experience with both programmes during the past six years. We especially talk about the role of senior academics in this transition towards a robust and serving academic culture.

You can watch Marieke’s professorial inaugural lecture (Oratie, in Dutch). We also talk about the new PhD thesis framework, that is recently rolled out at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC).

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sanlifaez.substack.com

Meetings, workshops, symposiums, and similar gatherings play a prominent role in every academics work time, and also for all the university employees. These are the times when important decisions are made and debates take place to form a collective understanding.

Except for some classrooms, during lectures and tutorials, the meeting culture at the university and academic organisations has not been the focus of intense attention or much innovation. Could reforming the meeting culture, or sometimes taking a radically different approach to what we are used to be part of the desired academic reform that can create room for everyone's talent?

Our guest, Doris Gottlieb is an experience meeting facilitator and trainer, and explains how changing out attitudes towards meetings can have a profound effect on making better informed decitions activating the participants. We talk about the Whole Person Process facilitation, and the Open Space Technology for large group meetings.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sanlifaez.substack.com

Dr. Alex Rushforth is a scholar in the fields of sociology of science and science policy, with his research and teaching centered on the areas of research evaluation, bibliometrics, science governance and science and technology studies (STS) more broadly.

Alex has recently written a critical commentary about the Netherlands recognition and rewards program.

He makes the case that:

the initiative has been largely effective in mobilizing formal organizational support from key stakeholders in Dutch research, but significant vulnerabilities remain, particularly regarding uncertain buy-in and implementation by rank-and-file academics - the ultimate implementers of the envisioned changes

In this episode we talk also the double role of each academic. The academics are employed by their universities, but they also have a gatekeeping role in what is added to the body of scientific knowledge, and who gets the privilege of having an academic career.

For the reform of our evaluation system, we need to make sure that change is happening consistently for both roles.

What I also learned from Alex is that it is possible to also look inside the working of committees, even with empathy for their role, that they have to translate all these new evaluation criteria and policy documents into their practices.

And our desired change is only realized when their interpretations are consistent with our intentions.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sanlifaez.substack.com

Here is a trailer. Expect a new episode every 2-3 weeks.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sanlifaez.substack.com