Ready to embrace the impact?

The new Recognition & Rewards e-magazine is entitled Embrace the impact. The magazine is full of interviews, blogs, articles and good practices relating to developments around our joint Recognition & Rewards programme at the various institutions. From the contributions, it is evident that Recognition & Rewards is increasingly being put into practice, including in terms of detailed new career paths, different assessment criteria, reflective leadership and much more. That makes us very happy!

In the e-magazine, the ambitions and progress of the Recognition & Rewards programme are communicated as comprehensively as possible through (in-depth) articles and video clips. This involves sharing good practices, providing information about international and other developments and presenting personal stories.

Examples include interviews with PhD candidate Britt van Belkom and her thesis supervisor Remco Havermans about her PhD track. Marieke Adriaanse discusses culture change and the role language plays in this. There is also an interview with Matilde Galli, Rinske Vermeij and Sarah de Rijcke about the question how to define quality. In addition, institutions share various good practices, such as in terms of career paths and leadership. And three lecturers speak about their passion for teaching.

The e-magazine is in English and is accessible to everyone. This is the second edition of the e-magazine of the joint programme. The first edition was published in 2022. All affiliated institutions have contributed to the articles.

We invite everyone to read the e-magazine and to share their thoughts about it with each other. If the articles raise questions or inspire ideas, please feel free to discuss them in the Recognition & Rewards working group at your institution, or contact the national programme team at erkennenwaarderen@unl.nl.

On Monday November 6th we had another ‘E&W broad’ meeting. This meeting is designed for project leaders, committee chairs, and others directly involved in the Recognition & Rewards programme to come together. During today’s meeting, we focused on scientists at the beginning of their careers. What is happening in this area at institutions? Colleagues from different institutions shared what they are doing for postdocs and lecturers.

Dagmar Eleveld, for instance, presented the approach from Radboudumc towards postdocs. What is needed to give postdocs a visible place? After that, Anna Roodhof (PNN), Max van Haastrecht (PhD student, Leiden University), and Marjan van Hunnik (KNAW) facilitated a workshop around the ‘proeve van bekwaamheid’ of PhD students. What should that be if we look from an E&W perspective at their multi-year journey to becoming ‘full-fledged academics’?

Robert Grem (University of Amsterdam) then presented the UvA’s new lecturer policy. Lecturers perform a substantial part of educational tasks, making them an important and inseparable part of the university. The policy aims to reduce the number of short-term appointments of lecturers, increase the job security of lecturers, and offer more career prospects.

The concluding presentation came from Julius Smit and Laurette van der Woning (University of Twente). In their presentation, they discussed recognising and rewarding OBP and the importance of good leadership in it. These were all interesting and important topics that prompted many questions and reactions. Concrete results? That’s not what this session is about. Exchanging experiences and developments is the aim, so that we can learn from each other. If you have any questions or suggestions, please let us know!

The European University Association has published a very important briefing on the use of rankings. With these ‘key considerations’, EUA aims to raise further awareness and encourage reflection of some of the potential pitfalls of rankings and provide its members with guidance towards their responsible use.

With this text, the European University Association (EUA) presents a set of guiding considerations to support universities in using global rankings responsibly.

University rankings have become a fact of (university) life. Since their emergence several decades ago, they have come to feature prominently, and often controversially, in discussions about demonstrating university performance and measuring quality and excellence in higher education.

While rankings may have had some positive impact (for some institutions), they continue to face sustained criticism for their choice and use of indicators, data collection methods, promotion of a single model of excellence, and lack of transparency on what they can – and cannot – tell their users about institutional quality and excellence. With this publication, EUA aims to raise further awareness and encourage reflection of some of the potential pitfalls of rankings and provide its members with guidance towards their responsible use.

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Source: https://www.eua.eu/resources/publications/1080:key-considerations-for-the-use-of-rankings-by-higher-education-institutions.html?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-linkedin-17-10-2023