Different ways to measure and reward academic success
Laura Jussen and Michael Wise on the change that the Recognition and Rewards programme is to bring about within NWO-I
A scientist’s success is generally measured in terms of a strong record of publications, citations and funding raised. If you have that, your career will usually proceed smoothly. But what does your future hold if you have a feel and talent for teaching, or play a supportive role in research, and don’t want to go down the traditional path? With the Recognition and Rewards (R&R) project, NWO-I is taking steps towards a new balance in how scientists are recognised and rewarded. A committee led by Laura Jussen (policy officer at the NWO-I office) and Michael Wise (director of SRON) has developed a vision with concrete recommendations that was embraced by the Directors Consultation (DC) on 13 October. Wise: ‘This cultural shift will benefit everyone.’
A six-legged sheep
Why is a change like this needed? ‘For a number of pressing reasons’, explains project manager Laura Jussen. ‘Scientists are being asked to do more and more. They need to publish, and win grants, but also teach students and undertake public outreach. Portfolio assessments gauge their contribution to the national role of the institutes. Add to that the growing demand for efforts for open science and societal challenges, and the ideal scientist is no longer the Dutch proverbial sheep with five legs, but an even rarer six-legged sheep.” In addition, she says, assessments are often individualistic in nature – are you the first author of a publication? – whereas researchers deliver their performance with a team. R&R is emphatically about looking at how a team performs and who has which role. Jussen: ‘If a colleague in your team has an affinity for teaching, then let them teach, so another colleague can focus on outreach. R&R aims to make better use of everyone’s talents. Thus we’re able to prevent scientists who are less publication-focused from leaving academia.’
DORA
It began in 2019 when the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), NWO and the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), a global initiative to assess research and researchers based less on bibliometric indicators (such as publications and citations) and more on other criteria. The declaration contained a set of recommendations for improving research assessment. KNAW, NWO and ZonMw fully endorsed the DORA principles and, together with Universities of The Netherlands (UNL) and the Netherlands Federation of University Medical Centres (NFU), published a position paper setting out their joint ambitions to modernise the Dutch system of recognition and rewards. The paper describes it as “a cultural shift that requires national and international coordination between all participants”. The authors go on to argue that “above all, it requires scientists, including academic managers, to shape and embrace this modernisation.” Each university set up its own R&R committee. In parallel, Jussen was tasked with developing an R&R vision and policy for NWO-I. She put together a broad committee comprising representatives from every institute and academic layer as well as from all management layers, HRM, communication and policy development.
Far from standard
Michael Wise chairs the committee. How did he come to take on this role? Wise: ‘As director, I had the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion project in my portfolio. Jos Baeten of CWI dealt with Recognition and Rewards within the Directors Consultation (DC). When he retired, I took over. There is a clear link between the two projects: they are about making NWO-I a positive and supportive environment for all. This includes efforts to raise awareness around scientific integrity.’ He adds that the DC had previously discussed “room for talent”. Wise’s enthusiasm for R&R stems in part from his own career path, which was far from standard: ‘I may be an astronomer and professor, but I have always worked on other projects alongside that, and I have built instruments.’ He believes that because the institutes bring a different perspective to the debate than the universities, NWO-I should therefore be fully committed to developing the new balance. ‘After all, besides researchers, the institutes also host a larger, diverse group of other academic specialists, such as engineers, software designers and instrument makers. They are also academics who enable the emergence of new science.’ Jussen adds that institutes differ from universities due to their national role: ‘For example, they maintain infrastructures that are available to third parties and provide relevant training for these. It makes our institutes very important.’
Additional ways to measure academic success
At the start of the project, Jussen and Wise met with resistance from the field. People worried whether NWO-I planned to change all the rules. ‘Will good publications become less important?’ was one response. And ‘Will the new approach compromise the quality of research?’ Wise is clear on this: ‘My answer was a firm: No, that is not going to happen. No one is saying that writing a good article isn’t important. We are trying to add other ways of measuring academic success. It’s not about replacing, but extending, to make the system more fully fledged and more accurate, and in line with people’s jobs and lives. ‘Is that necessary?’ was another question. My response was: ‘Open your eyes’. Young researchers are expressing their concerns about the atmosphere and climate in academia. It’s about making things better, without demolishing anything.’
Reinforcing
Over the past year, the committee has organised workshops and discussion sessions on the core areas of national role, leadership, research, impact and teaching. Colleagues from every institute attended these sessions. Wise says their contribution was constructive: ‘The aim was to link specific actions to the recommendations. For example, ‘we need to conduct open science, but how.’ Jussen says that the recommendations have been made smarter in the implementation plan and that priorities have been chosen: ‘We started by listing the actions to be achieved, then worked out a list of needs, and decided what can be done in the short term and what in the slightly longer term. The feasibility of the plan was discussed with all organisational layers, including HRM and communication. We shared it with the data management and open access group, to see where our efforts complement, overlap and can reinforce each other. The final version of the vision and implementation plan was approved by the DC on 13 October.’
Current and future initiatives
The cultural shift should take shape from the first quarter of 2023, say Wise and Jussen. Jussen adds the proviso that the dossiers are very broad and that changes cannot be implemented all at once. Jussen: ‘Team Science is one such example. It implies that every member of the team is included in the assessment. You can develop a form for that in collaboration with HRM, but of course that only takes you part of the way. Everyone understands the various roles, but there is also the question of how you get different opportunities within a team. This needs to be clarified in dialogue with scientists and HRM. By the way, while working on the topics, we’ve discovered that the institutes are already doing all sorts of things that fit in seamlessly with the R&R plans. There are leadership courses, for example. And NIOZ has a coordinator who oversees all teaching projects and is a point of contact for those who want to focus on teaching. This implicitly shows that teaching is considered important.’
NWO and ZonMw
Jussen believes it is vitally important that NWO and ZonMw are on board. ‘Both organisations are concerned with funding research and less with personnel policy, but they can adjust the application processes and set different requirements in calls and award interviews. No more compulsory section with a checklist of publications and citations, but “five things you are most proud of”. Committee members need to receive training to conduct interviews differently’, says Jussen. NWO is conducting discussions with universities and institutes to explore the potential use of an evidence-based CV.
Adjust and adapt
‘The main take-away from our dossier is that we are working together across NWO-I’, says Jussen. The committee will continue to work and seek dialogue and everyone is willing to share good practice. The field makes its needs heard and the committee incorporates this feedback into its actions. Jussen: ‘The aim is to inspire colleagues and learn from each other’s responses and experiences, including those from the biggest critics. We will collect input from all organisational layers. And we will adjust plans and adapt actions as we go. We are also launching some small pilots.’ Wise adds that the first actions, such as new assessment forms, mark the start of an irreversible process, with ultimately a positive impact on the careers and lives of NWO-I colleagues.
At the end of September, the NWO Executive Board signed the European Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment. Signatories commit to broadening the assessment of research, researchers and research organisations. ‘There are currently many initiatives – nationally and internationally – with the same goal: to include the different forms of output, ways of working and activities in the assessments’, says Jussen.
Share your ideas about recognition and rewards!
The committee is open to input from colleagues, via CommitteeRecognitionRewards@nwo-i.nl.
Who is Michael Wise?
Wise (1964) is the General and Scientific Director of SRON, the Netherlands Institute for Space Research and also holds an appointment as Professor of High Energy Astrophysics at the University of Amsterdam. Wise obtained his PhD from the University of Virginia in 1992. After serving as a postdoc at Kitt Peak National Observatory, Wise joined the staff at MIT where he was part of the team that built and launched NASA’s flagship Chandra X-ray observatory. In 2006 he moved to the Netherlands to join the staff of ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, to work on the design and construction of the International LOFAR Telescope. While at ASTRON, he served as LOFAR project scientist and later Head of the Astronomy division before moving to SRON in 2019 as Director.
Who is Laura Jussen?
Jussen (1988) is a molecular biologist. After her studies, she worked as a PhD candidate in epigenetics at Radboud University, where she was also a PhD representative on several committees. In 2018, Jussen joined the NWO-I office as a policy officer in the Strategic Support department. In this role, she was the liaison for CWI and she is now project leader Recognition & Rewards and Knowledge Utilisation. Jussen chairs the works council of the NWO-I office. In her spare time, Jussen enjoys creative pursuits such as making her own clothes, embroidery and painting. She also practises kickboxing. Jussen lives in Waddinxveen with her partner and three cats.
Text: Anita van Stel
Newsletter Inside NWO-I, October 2022
You can find the archive of the newsletter Inside NWO-I on the NWO-I website.