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“We need to create a university where a meandering career path doesn’t work against you”
For five years, the Recognition and Appreciation Committee has been working on a new appraisal system for scientists at the UvA. Chairman Huub Dijstelbloem gives an overview of the state of affairs. “What I hope is that employees will dare to meander much more in their careers.”
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The scientific assessment system has been faltering for decades, Huub Dijstelbloem, Professor of Philosophy and Chairperson of the Recognition and Appreciation (E&W) Committee at the UvA knows from his own experience. Back in the 1990s, when he conducted a self-evaluation study of pharmaceutical faculties in the Netherlands, researchers were already complaining that science’s standard assessment protocols were inadequate. For example, they had developed a database to link knowledge about therapies and medication to pharmacies but were ultimately judged on a reduced number of publications in leading journals. “Even then you could see that science was defined far too narrowly for many researchers.”
That tide has begun to turn in recent years, Dijstelbloem says on the terrace of the Eye Museum on a summer day in May - the UvA was closed that day because of the Palestine protests. Since the Universities of the Netherlands (UNL), the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), and other administrative organizations also gave their administrative blessing to the discussions in 2019 with the position paper “Room for Everyone’s Talent,” the national program Erkennen en Waarderen (Recognition and Appreciation – R&A) began to take shape.
R&A aims to value scientists not primarily on research, but also on teaching, social impact, acquisition, and collaboration and focuses on differentiated career paths at this stage. Since 2023, Dijstelbloem has been implementing that program with a team commissioned by the rector at the UvA. “My job is to start bringing about the debate and policy in the faculties.”
What has changed in UvA policy since 2019?
“In terms of policy, concretely, nothing has changed yet at most UvA faculties, except Acta and the Faculty of Medicine, which have their own collective bargaining agreement and already have R&A policies pretty much in place. Nationally, you could say that the UvA was a bit late to the party. Some universities such as Utrecht University, Maastricht University, and the VU led the way. At those universities, diversification of career profiles is already embedded in policy.”
“One of the reasons why it is more difficult to get policy through top-down at the UvA is because the UvA is decentralized and has gigantic faculties: the FNWI faculty is larger than the entire University of Twente.”
“On the other hand, a lot is already happening at the UvA in the spirit of R&A. For example, we already work with profiles of scientists, so some researchers focus more on research, others more on teaching, or outreach. We also look at the composition of research groups in which everyone fulfills their role, and social significance is a key word for many UvA researchers. So it’s already happening; now it’s just a matter of enshrining it in policy.”
Postdocs and doctoral students say they notice little of the program yet, according to a recently published report An uncertain start by the Rathenau Institute. How can that be?
“I can understand where that picture is coming from. R&A receives a lot of support, but people still find it unclear where the program is leading in concrete terms. What I also notice is that it makes early career scholars such as PhD students and postdocs nervous. They do not yet have a permanent position and wonder if they are betting on the right horse: ‘If I start working on social impact and after five years the policy turns around, can I still find a job?’”
“There is also a fear among that group that promises will not be kept and that different decisions will be made behind the scenes. Administrators also have these concerns, but over whether they can still keep the process transparent as the number of aspects on which you can judge someone grows. In an internal promotion round, how can they explain why they chose Sara or Mohammed? I do think that’s an important issue.”
Half of the PhD students do not know the program, the same report shows. Sometimes PhD supervisors tell PhD students that the program is not meant for them. Who exactly is the E&W program intended for?
“Recognize and Appreciate is definitely for PhD students and postdocs as well. E&W applies particularly to academic staff because certain issues such as publication pressure and teaching duties only affect those scientists. However, scientific work is increasingly carried out in teams, in close cooperation between scientists and support staff. This work also requires recognition and appreciation. Teachers also deserve much recognition and appreciation, but not all dimensions of the program, such as research, social impact, and certain forms of leadership will be equally meaningful to them.”
How will the E&W program at the UvA ensure that early career scholars do not fall by the wayside?
“By generating a lot of targeted attention for this in the research schools and PhD programs. That is a very important task for the faculties and institutes. And by providing transparency and clarity about the E&W policy and what it means for whom.”
Aren’t scientists at risk of losing their international position if we in the Netherlands abandon a rating system based on H indexes, a measure of how often a scientist is cited, and journal impact factors, a measure of the quality of scientific journals?
“Would that really be the case? I honestly think that is an unrealistic doomsday scenario. At all the interesting universities on UvA researchers’ lists, these kinds of R&A developments are also at play. I have yet to see the first successful group that is going to be affected by R&A. Indeed, especially in successful biomedical or physics research groups that often contribute dozens to a publication, R&A is already partly in effect. To keep such a group going, team science, organization and differentiation in career profiles already play a very big role. I think the UvA can be quite proud of what is already happening. We should showcase that more.”
So how is it that there are still so many complaints about high work pressure at universities, as a report by the Labor Inspectorate once again shows?
“You can’t alleviate the ‘actual workload’ with E&W. That has to do with the fact that our funding has not grown with the huge increase in students and the intensification of education. However, R&A can help alleviate the pressure that people experience for doing many things that are not appreciated. Everyone knows them - the colleague who is always ready to take over a course when someone is sick or offers himself when no one raises their hand and ends up not getting promoted because they have not published enough.”
Where does the R&A policy stand now?
“We are now in the middle of a dialogue with the boards of all the faculties. Those conversations are both about ‘What is good science?’ and ‘What does E&W mean for my career?’ In doing so, we are also looking at what is already in place and where faculty want to go. After the summer, we will then look at the state of affairs and how we can translate the findings into policy that is university-wide but has customization for each faculty.”
How will you ensure that the policy is actually implemented?
“That’s very difficult because you can’t just sit down at annual interviews, but you can adjust the forms for annual interviews, for example. Faculty HR departments are also going to play a big role in this.”
The follow-up question is then: The current career path runs through so-called UFO profiles (Job Order System) that belong to the universities’ collective bargaining agreement. Are these ultimately suitable for the E&W program?
“There is quite a lot of discussion about that. The Young Academy (DJA) would like to adapt them. Other universities want to work with them.”
What could the new career profile at the UvA mean for researchers?
“What I hope is that employees will dare to meander much more in their careers. That it becomes much more normal that in an annual interview, you don’t just talk about publications but much more about the employee’s development based on the group’s mission. That may mean that an employee will focus more on teaching, governance, or social impact.”
“There is a lot of mental pressure from the current model. Many young researchers still feel that before they can feel free they have to jump through a lot of hoops. I would be delighted if we could also project the image to young researchers that you can be free from the start. And that we can create a university where meandering doesn’t work against you, but collaboration, looking next door, and ‘playing outside the box’ are all valued.”
Then we still have a long way to go.
“We have a long way to go, indeed. But by 2026, the world should look a lot better, and I expect that we will have more concrete forms of career paths that are also anchored in policy. Still, real culture change will not be complete by 2026. You may need a generation for that. However long it takes - and regardless of whether I am still president by then - I will continue to work hard for it.”
