Community

The university is shaped by its people

A university consists, first and foremost, of the people who work and study there. Of course, a university also has organisational and physical aspects: its buildings, productions, flows of funding, frameworks, and rules. But in essence, a university is an abstract and living entity formed by its community. The culture in that community, which manifests itself both in its dealings with each other and with the outside world, is value-based. The public values we hold each other to include scientific and personal integrity, inclusiveness, and community engagement, as we discussed in the other chapters as well. As we act based on these fundamental values, knowledge is created, shared, and applied, and the conditions are created in which these primary processes can take place. In an ideal university community, this arises from team-driven, complementary collaboration with others. The community is formed by everyone who is part of the university and its network, regardless of whether they receive a salary. That means not only academic and non-academic staff, but also students, visiting and collaborating national and international colleagues, and third parties, such as societal partners with whom we have (long-term) functional contacts. How all these people interact with each other and with their work determines both the university’s ‘personality’ and its academic and societal impact.

In this chapter, we will therefore zoom in on the community at the heart of the university. A warm, beating heart, we hope, where people feel seen and heard and which they enjoy being part of. But unfortunately, the reality is sometimes different. The academic community is showing signs of strain. The workload is generally unacceptably heavy, uncertainty is the rule of the day, competition is often unhealthy, and team support is not always a given. The multiplicity of short, temporary staff positions undermines a strong sense of belonging to the university and its community. For instance, many temporary teachers have no prospects of an academic career. Regulatory pressure, protocols and accountability also undermine the intrinsic motivation to be part of a community of values, where people work together to produce and share knowledge. People leave for these reasons, as pictorially illustrated by Eelco Runia in his book ‘Genadezesjes’ (‘Mercy Pass’, not available in English).^[1] It also manifests itself in movements like ‘WO in actie’ (‘Academic Education in action’), a national platform supported by several universities that promotes the interests of university education, and advocates strengthening the intertwining of education and scientific research. This intertwining has come under stress in recent years due to severe, long-term budget cuts and a rapid increase in the number of students.^[2] The criticism expressed is a clear signal, especially from an academic staff perspective. In addition, there are other problems, such as the experienced gap between academic and support staff. Previously given solutions are limited in their benefits today and offer little direction for how we can operate more as teams and respond more clearly as a university to challenges and expectations from society. Such a vision of change is, however, provided by the system analysis conducted by Science in Transition (2013, 2014), as we discussed in more detail in the chapter on research. In this chapter, we will extend that vision to explore its implications for the university community.

Alongside the problems like a heavy workload and the emerged gap between education and research, there is also need for improvement in the areas of inclusiveness and a safe working environment. A multitude of reports paint a picture of the university as an unsafe place, ranging from sexual harassment among students and staff^[3], to gossiping, humiliation, withholding information and abuse of power.^[4] These problems seem to be fed by the competitive climate, heavy workload, and the large number of dependent relationships. Academic hierarchy is a fundamental part of a university system, but it can lead to undesirable power relations. In 2022, a committee chaired by Naomi Ellemers wrote the KNAW report ‘Social safety in Dutch science, from paper to practice’.^[5] It not only provides insight into the need for us to work on social safety, but it also shows that doing so benefits scientific integrity and vice-versa. Good science and social safety mutually reinforce each other. Neither comes naturally, so both aspects require conscious and explicit attention. Together, we must also be willing and able to bring difficult topics up for discussion and to embrace the discomfort they cause.

In this chapter, we will describe our vision of an open, inclusive, socially safe, and at the same time intellectually challenging environment. An environment where people feel welcome and heard, and are challenged to be the best they can be. An environment where a multitude of opinions, backgrounds, insights, and perspectives are treated with attention and respect, and where it is a sine qua non to engage with those around you and society. In doing so, we will also address the obstacles, challenges, and risks. Because where people come together, harmony is never guaranteed: every individual has their own ideas and needs. But as we outlined in the previous section, there is currently more going on than just a diversity of opinions, and that includes inequality and unsafety. Ideally, the multiplicity of ideas and opinions should be the university’s strongest point, where many voices are heard and academic debate is not shunned, because diversity sparks quality. We realise that we do not offer an immediate practical answer to the problems we face today. But by outlining an inviting perspective, we hope to at least provide some guidance in the search for answers.

From individuals to teams

As we mentioned earlier, we see the university ideally as a thriving community focused on generating, applying, and sharing knowledge for society. A learning community, open to learning from and with each other; learning by generating new knowledge in research, by applying that knowledge, and by sharing knowledge through education. The term ‘learning community’ is not new, and was referred to as early as the classical Von Humboldt model on which today’s universities are based. In Von Humboldt’s model, however, the learning community was limited to a closed academic community, which was also highly focused on individual interaction and achievement. In our opinion, neither the closed nor the individual character are still tenable today. The vision with which this book is saturated embraces openness and team spirit. We therefore propose a fundamental change. The learning community of the future should consist of a dynamic and flexible configuration of teams. Fortunately, steps are already being taken in this direction. Excellence is no longer defined as the extent to which an individual performs, but as the extent to which someone contributes to the success of different teams. In addition to substantive performance, that means an emphasis on leadership and creating an open culture, where people can and dare to hold each other accountable, with respect for other opinions. Society has changed significantly, and the challenges we face are immense. As we have argued in previous chapters, the academic work of research and education will become less and less individualistic, and teams are indispensable for teaching, researching, and tackling complex problems in the modern, digital, global society. We will have to deal with that complexity in our research, education, and in the organisation of the university. The old idea of the lone genius has always been a myth; no one ever succeeds entirely on their own merits. Yet, in the past, world-class achievements were often attributed to individuals.

In the future, it will become even more apparent that world-class performance can only be achieved in teams. Besides shifting the focus from individual- to team performance, this brings us to a second important foundation of the learning community: diversity. From the perspective of team complementarity, diversity is a necessity, not a luxury. Take education, for example. In education, collaboration and interaction between teachers, students and stakeholders is indispensable, as is collaboration with experts in the fields of education and information technology. But we also have to deal with the broad palette of organisational aspects: from campus layout to room management, from student administration to invigilator, from policy to quality assurance. People are responsible for all these aspects, and these actors all interact with one another. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. When collaboration is constructive, the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts and produces synergy. But collaboration can, however, falter, for example due to a lack of understanding each other’s perspectives, due to intolerance, social unsafety, or the ‘cancelling’ of certain voices. In these cases, weak links in a process are not always identified or addressed, with the risk of sub-optimal team performance, or even team disfunction.

We fully realise that collaboration is not always easy. Collaboration can only succeed if people share the same goals and ambition, and display tolerance, acceptance and both personal and organisational flexibility. So, what keeps us from doing that? As we stated above, we first need to ensure close ties with the organisation and with each other; i.e., the community. That, in turn, requires a safe and inclusive culture, an acceptable workload, an appreciation of each others’ contributions to teams, a clear mission and vision, and leadership. A culture in which we always openly and actively explore what is going well together, but also what is not going well yet.

What is a team? The term ‘team’ has a broad meaning here: as any constellation in which people work together for periods of time around a common goal. The common goal can be a concrete task or product, like a research project, a course, or an entire programme. The common goal can also be thematic or abstract, such as a working group or task force dealing with a shared interest, problem, or ambition. At its core, a team has something that brings people together and binds them. Teams can therefore be small or large, instituted from above or arise organically from bottom-up, be loosely organised or tight-knit, and they can be temporary or structural. Everyone will always be flexibly and dynamically part of multiple teams, often taking on different roles within them. See the fictional example of Laila in Inset 4.1.

Inset 4.1. The example of Laila and her teams.

Laila recently obtained a position as Assistant Professor. Her ‘home base’ is the disciplinary chair group she is part of. She teaches in an interdisciplinary Bachelor’s programme, being part of several nested teams: the small team of the course she coordinates, the broader team of teaching and support staff of the bachelor programme, and the broad education community which includes students, alumni and field representatives in addition to the teachers and support staff. She is also involved in a faculty teaching innovation project, where she is a member of an innovation team together with central and faculty experts in the fields of education and IT. As part of her research activities, she is member of a chair group, which forms a broader group together with other chair groups in the same department. In addition, she is member of an international research consortium project team together with two other universities and an industrial partner. She is part of a PhD supervision team as daily supervisor, and thereby also part of the Graduate School community. Motivated by her commitment to the societal role of the university, she has joined a faculty advisory committee on inclusion and diversity. She is also part of a team of volunteers who teach at a weekend school on Saturdays to enhance equal opportunity...

The fictional example illustrates that people are rarely part of just one team, and often find themselves operating in multiple team contexts. Sometimes these teams exist parallel to one another, sometimes they consist of smaller teams nested in larger teams, and sometimes teams can partially overlap. We could have used other examples here, both academic and non-academic. Anyone consulting their own diary will probably be able to identify several ‘teams’, from one-off or short-term collaborations to structural or long-term groups one feels part of. In practice, we do not label every collaboration a ‘team’; we will use many different words like group, network, committee, and many more. Yet in all these constellations, teamwork is the basis of what we do, whether it is managing the cafeteria, conducting a research project, or running a department.

What is important, especially in this multitude of teams, is that everyone has a ‘home base’. This home base takes the form of at least one team that provides a structural foundation, both organisationally and socially. The formal structure of the home base offers the individual coaching and guidance within the multitude of teams, and with it a sense of home: a place where you feel you belong, where people know you and acknowledge your contributions. A manager should be explicitly mindful of the multiplicity of teams, coach employees in prioritising and making choices, and include their performance across all their work-related teams in their assessment. One underappreciated aspect includes rewarding the efforts it takes to connect: to connect the knowledge, experience and expertise gained from different teams (boundary crossing, or boundary spanning), or pass on knowledge or introductions (‘brokering’). Realising cross-over between teams is crucial for a properly functioning ecosystem at university. However, the linking activities often do not directly or visibly contribute to a person’s performance. They are the invisible but indispensable wiring circuit - like that of a car, ensuring that the different parts work together to achieve optimal driving performance. Imagine having four beautiful wheels, a smooth-running engine, a driver, a steering wheel, but none of them are connected.... This might be a bit of an oversimplification, but we occasionally see it happen in the real world: people working so hard to keep their own specific part running, their ‘own’ task in order, that they lose sight of the bigger picture, and are not held accountable for it. This poses a risk: the efforts needed to properly coordinate one’s own actions with other activities, to help others, and to reflect on one’s own task and transform if necessary, may not be as recognised, appreciated or encouraged. The current system is not organised to that end. We will elaborate on this below, because rewarding this teamwork-focused attitude and effort is fundamental for the transition to an open culture.

For the individual, this vision means being aware of yourself and your surroundings, and of how you interact with them. In other words: of the context and role in which the individual finds himself at any given moment. A person needs to know their own qualities and their limits, and how they can contribute in different environments. It is also necessary to recognise the utility and necessity of bringing together insights, products, and people from different environments. This requires an attitude in which responsibility is not shifted to others, but in which we continuously ask ourselves: ‘What can I do to make others, or the different teams, function well?’. That also includes asking: ‘What shouldn’t I do myself, because others can do it better? Or where can I offer other people opportunities?’ This requires an open, responsible, and committed attitude, and putting the team before self-interest. It also requires the knowledge and skills for working with others or across disciplinary and socio-cultural boundaries.

As outlined in the previous section, this also means that ‘connecting activities’ should be rewarded alongside the immediate results. To do justice to the multitude of teams, management will have to include broad feedback on- and from the multitude of teams within which the employee functions. Some form of departmental team structure will always remain necessary, but with a different function than before: namely, securing a home base. The current, basically one-dimensional model of separate departments will never be able to do justice to the multiplicity of team positions and roles. A manager will increasingly have to look beyond the boundaries of a home base in recognising, rewarding, and providing development opportunities to employees, or maybe rather, mentees? The manager’s role becomes more guiding than steering, which requires looking at the employee’s performance and development from a broad organisational perspective. Such a new coaching leadership structure and culture will need to be developed, but there are already examples of tools that could serve this vision. This includes the ‘fleet review’. In a ‘fleet review’, managers jointly consider how employees function and where their talents lie, with the aim of determining how everyone’s talents can be optimally deployed and developed. Such a team-oriented approach can facilitate mobility and provide input for a proactive talent policy. It can also ensure optimal fulfilment of the various roles in teams. Employees themselves should obviously have an important voice in mobility and development, and be able to give input before or during the review. But the advantage of a broad fleet review is that an individual is much less dependent on a single manager or any personal contacts outside their department. Instead, they are evaluated by the organisation as a whole.

The team-oriented attitude and work method described above applies to everyone in the university community. But if we zoom in on the academic tasks, we can distinguish two core tasks: research and education. As we argued above, the intertwining of research with education is what characterises a university education. But the intertwining of research with the application of that knowledge in professional roles, such as clinical work or applied roles in business or (non-)governmental organisations, is also highly relevant. This is why we explicitly also refer to public engagement, societal impact, and professional performance. Consider the clinical work performed by academics in an academic hospital, which is highly relevant to both their research and educational activities. We have already mentioned the importance of team engagement through connecting activities, and in other chapters we emphasise the importance of impact and leadership. But does that mean everyone needs to be willing and able to do everything and also display leadership, in order to make a career? The answer is very clearly: no. What is fundamental and crucial is that everyone is actively connected, via their teams, to both research and education, and, when relevant, to their professional field. But an individual cannot, and need not, excel at everything at all times to be an excellent academic.

For education and research, there are minimum threshold values: every academic is expected to be involved both in education and in research. For academics with an emphasis on research or impact, the minimum educational threshold is that they must have a role in disseminating their expertise through teaching. However, for academics whose profile emphasises teaching, the bar is much higher in terms of education than mere teaching: they are expected to be knowledgeable in education, coach others in their teaching, and lead educational innovation. In other words, they must display educational leadership and scholarship. For them, a minimum threshold applies to research. At a minimum, they should be aware of and involved in research that touches on the subject matter they teach. The interpretation of both minimum threshold values and what is considered to be ‘excellent’ is partly a political and cultural discussion and is primarily determined by the university’s strategy and local context. Minimum thresholds could be discussed, and for transparency should include terms of maximum lag-time (period in which an academic activity is not conducted) or minimum output criteria. The main, guiding principle, however, should be that the combination, including the lower thresholds, serves the quality of education and research; that someone either teaches based on an active (team) involvement in research, or combines research with active (team) involvement in dissemination of knowledge. In very concrete terms, one can conclude that teaching or conducting research fully unilaterally is undesirable, unless it is explicitly a phase in a developing career (for example, one or more years of full-time focus on research or education, followed by explicit opportunities for a new career step which entails a combination or an alternation), or otherwise to ensure continuous contact with - and development in - the field of expertise. Exceptions can and may therefore exist, but two things must always be put first: the (long-term) quality of research and education, and the prevention of trapdoor constructions in which someone cannot develop further in their career or field of expertise.

The inclusive community

The ideal university community is inclusive in the broadest sense. It is a community where every staff member and student is welcome and included, regardless of their background, origin, ethnicity, orientation, culture, religion, political beliefs, physical limitations, and all the other differences there may be between people. This may sound very aspirational, and although few will object to this principle, it is not so easy to actually realize in practice. For instance, people consciously and unconsciously tend to choose to interact with people who are similar to them, whereas working together in diverse teams can sometimes be difficult or cause some discomfort. From one’s own perspective, it can be hard to realise which obstacles other people experience, or which behaviour can be perceived as offensive. It is therefore important to pay conscious attention to encouraging diversity and inclusion, and to openly discuss people’s experiences of discomfort or offence. Diversity requires attention in our recruitment and hiring policies, as well as in the composition of partnerships. Diversity is a means to quality, and not an end in itself. Yet, to achieve a diverse community, diversity, equity, and inclusiveness will have to be deliberate and active goals if we want to break down the existing barriers, because it is not enough to simply encourage diversity in hiring policies and team composition. People from the diverse intake pool must also be given equitable opportunities and be able to freely yet respectfully express themselves and interact, in order for us to truly reap the benefits of that diversity. We must therefore pay attention to inclusiveness too, as soon as someone joins the community, whether as a student, employee, or guest. An inclusive community means that no one is structurally excluded, either intentionally or unintentionally; that differences are respected and their value recognised. This requires conscious reflection from the community on its own norms and manners, and actively identifying intentional or unintentional exclusionary practices and customs. Tolerance, respect, and openness towards others is a prerequisite for constructive interaction. Curiosity about the other, rather than condemnation based on prior assumptions. Listening instead of telling. As it is nicely formulated in the UMC Utrecht’s code of conduct: first, understand, and then be understood. Sincere curiosity and interest are therefore essential, and just so happen to be the basis for a scientific attitude as well. It is therefore very fitting for us to have a similar attitude when dealing with one another. The desire for diversity and inclusiveness does not stem from an ideological ideal, but from the vision that we truly need it if we as a university are to understand and properly address problems in society together with external stakeholders, as we explained in detail elsewhere in this book.

Achieving a diverse and inclusive community requires effort. This is not a matter of a one-time transition, but something that needs constant monitoring and attention. Indeed, there are many unconscious and mostly unintended mechanisms that can obstruct equal participation. To bring these to the surface, we will always need to display an open attitude and effort. This concept is sometimes referred to as the ‘hidden culture’ within organisations:^[6] the organisation’s unwritten norms, values, and expectations. Although they are not explicit, and often tacit knowledge for those who belong to the in-group, they do create a barrier for people who do not belong to the in-group but come from other contexts. Those from the dominant social group are often unaware of this hidden culture. It is important to realise this, and to offer people who are new to the academic community help in reflecting upon and navigating within this new context. Especially with regard to the unwritten rules. For example, a buddy or mentor can play an important role: someone with whom it is safe to talk about one’s unexpected experiences, one’s surprises or doubts, and who can offer tools on how to move forward in the new environment. Addressing the hidden culture can therefore enrich diversity: it allows us to explicitly describe what characterises a culture in a positive sense, while also allowing for the correction of unintended negative effects or bias. A newcomer’s surprise can therefore contribute to improvements, but it requires an open attitude on the part of the dominant group.

Hidden culture exists in the university as an organisation, but it also has an equivalent in education: the ‘hidden curriculum’.^[7] We need to realise that the education we offer is never exactly the same as what students learn or experience, and also that it always takes place within a certain vision and culture. What we teach is more than mere knowledge: students are also part of the community, and they have to navigate all of its unwritten rules, norms and values. The fact that something is ‘hidden’ does not always have to be negative: consider the socialisation function of education, which is largely implicit. But the effect of a hidden curriculum can be negative. A curriculum - any curriculum - by definition comes about in a certain context and will therefore always be coloured by it. We need to be aware of that and be explicit about it, and be reflective and open to feedback, in order to detect and address any negative effects as quickly as possible. It is therefore vital for us to always be alert to potential unintended biases.

Let us take the study of medicine as an example: medicine at Dutch universities actually means Western medicine. The programme may pay attention to different visions of health, such as Eastern Medicine, but the curriculum is characterised by the Western perspective. This is neither positive nor negative, but rather a fact: a characteristic that arises from the context of the society and university that offers the training. At the same time, in medical research and education we have become increasingly aware that much of our clinical knowledge, especially in the past, has been based on studies - often clinical trials - involving predominantly white, adult males without co-morbidities (no other diseases). That means the knowledge base acquired is not necessarily applicable to the population is general, but mainly to ‘adult white men’. The study programme now, on the one hand, pays more explicit attention to the importance of research in more diverse populations, looking into things like gender, socio-economic, cultural, and ethnical diversity. On the other hand, the programme also pays more attention to a more inclusive choice of knowledge sources for the knowledge base and the curriculum. It specifically addresses the differences in risk factors, symptoms, and treatment of cardiovascular disease between men and women, for example. Or how to diagnose skin disease on a variety of skin tones.

A very different example of unintended hidden curriculum effects is differences in learning effect of a university education that do not result from differences in talent or prior knowledge, but from the student’s background; the so-called ‘attainment gap’. The term comes from research, among others in England, where much monitoring has been done on these differences, and where it appears that education can - unintentionally - have very different effects on students from certain socio-cultural groups. Monitoring the attainment gap is, for example, one way of making the hidden curriculum explicit, or at least some of its consequences. And once consequences are brought to light, we can go looking for the causes. The term ‘hidden’ refers to the fact that the phenomena are by definition not immediately visible. If we want to address a hidden culture, we will have to make an effort. And we cannot limit that effort to a one-off improvement exercise, and then say we’re done. Instead, it is important to constantly realise that our community and activities exist within a certain socio-cultural setting, and that our curriculum arises from it. This has both positive and negative effects. By pursuing diversity and inclusiveness and by being open to the signals from the diverse community, we as a community can highlight the positive aspects, and mitigate the negatives.

Another point we want to address when it comes to hurdles for an inclusive community is the large gap that is experienced between the academic staff and the support and administrative staff. The actual difference lies in the nature of the employee’s appointment: in whether it is directly focussed on the primary academic activities or indirect. The perceived divide, however, goes far beyond the actual differences in tasks. It manifests itself in significant differences in hierarchy and recognition, in practical matters like facilities and communication structures, and in socio-cultural aspects such as how we interact with one another. This gap between the two staff cohorts is both undesirable and ineffective. It also obstructs teamwork. At Utrecht University, the decision was recently made to no longer address employees as either academic or support staff, but rather to address everyone uniformly as university employees.

If we want to narrow the gap, it is important to realise that the support staff cohort is by no means a homogeneous group, but rather encompasses very different categories of employees. Moreover, without wanting to introduce a new dividing line, amongst university personnel in support roles we could distinguish between those with or without higher educational training. Academic professionals are university-trained employees who, although not holding an academic position, operate in direct cooperation with academic staff, are often appointed from amongst them, and are involved in the implementation, organisation, strategic policy, or management of the university’s primary tasks on the basis of their academic or professional expertise. They include the technology- or didactic experts, management positions, and policy staff. Their roles and tasks can be very diverse but have in common that the cooperation with academic staff and students is more or less self-evident: people speak the same ‘language’ and structurally encounter one another in the workplace. If we look at this group, for the near future we see more and more of a grey area in which the distinction between academic and non-academic roles and career paths is not so clear. An area where people dynamically and flexibly alternate or combine academic and professional positions or hold positions that, based on the nature of the position, lie somewhere at the juncture between the two. These positions include those in the fields of senior data management, bioinformatics, and educational training for university teachers. So, in the future, we will increasingly see that the distinction between academic and academic-professional roles will fade. The interactions between these groups will become more dynamic and permeable. On the one hand, because people desperately need each other in their teams, and on the other, because both management tasks and professional tasks (such as consultancy or professional practice in a taught and researched field), are increasingly seen as part of an academic career. We will return to this in more detail in the section on the transition to an academic culture of Recognition and Rewards.

Next to the academic professionals, there is also a large and very diverse group of university personnel who do not interact directly with the primary process, but who provide the logistical or organisational preconditions within which research and education can take place. These staff members have had a wide range of educations and prior training: from practice-oriented training to academic education. Their support activities are sometimes visibly part of departments and teams, as with secretarial offices or financial departments. But more often, the work is less visible to the academic community, and employees are not automatically seen as part of a university department or team, as is for example often the case with janitorial services, security, or catering. In fact, these tasks have increasingly been ‘outsourced’ over the past few years, which means that staff work at the university, but are not actually employed there. Sometimes there is a mismatch between formal, labour-law positions, and perceived or desired communities. Sometimes, there are no formal or informal opportunities for contact. Many of these support staff members rarely come across the academic staff in their work activities, and they also tend to have their own socio-cultural - and sometimes even physical - working environment. They may have different organisational and consultation structures, and their operational units are often physically housed in other buildings or building sections than the academic activities. As a result, their social activities are also often organised separately.

Ideally, though, we would like to see the logistics and operations staff feeling more like part of a community together with academic staff, and operating accordingly. We would prefer to acknowledge everyone’s contribution, and let everyone contribute to the university’s goals and strategy. Not just because it would be shameful - and a bit hypocritical - to claim to be open to society, and then overlook part of one’s own community, but also because the large and diverse group of support staff is just as essential to high-quality education, research and societal outreach as the academic staff. Their role is indispensable in facilitating the primary processes; the services they provide will only be optimal if they feel involved in those processes and if there is open communication between the two. They also help determine the atmosphere and culture at the university. Their contribution must therefore be seen and appreciated, and the person behind the contribution must be seen and appreciated. The security guard or amanuensis is not an anonymous face, but a colleague with a name. And that colleague is as much part of the university community as any student or researcher. Many a student, foreign guest or new staff member will feel welcome precisely because of that one cordial doorman or helpdesk worker. Or they may just as well feel lost or excluded if that interaction is lacking. So, all employees are an inseparable part of our community. At the same time, we should not pretend that there are no differences. Our communications should take into account the major differences in tasks and level of education; but respect for each person and their contribution should be the foundation of our university community. Ideally, there should be ties between support departments and academic department, so that every staff member belongs to at least one mixed ‘team’ of academic and support staff employees.

A diverse and inclusive community requires investment; it will not arise spontaneously. We must pay attention to inclusion and participation. Customs and practices may not speak for themselves for groups of people like first-generation students, people with disabilities, or people with a migration background. If everyone looks out for one another, then everyone can feel welcome. Investing in social cohesion takes time, money and, above all, deliberate attention. As a community and organisation, we must be willing to invest; in mutual communication, in mutual deliberations, and in both structural and spontaneous encounters. This is in line with the report by the committee led by Naomi Ellemers cited above, and its appeal to dare to embrace discomfort. This investment is not altruistic; it contributes to employee job satisfaction and well-being, and ultimately enhances quality and productivity. A term for this in management literature is ‘encouraging organisational citizenship’: behaviour in which employees are willing to go the extra mile, of their own free will and sense of commitment.^[8] A willingness to help others, beyond what is expected based on one’s job description. This kind of behaviour makes a positive contribution to an organisation’s effectiveness. It reinforces teamwork, reduces dropouts and turnover, reduces counterproductive behaviour, and contributes to higher productivity.^[9] By going the extra mile, we do not mean that everyone just has to work even harder; our workload should certainly not increase any further, because it is already very heavy - unacceptably so in some positions. But if everyone lends each other a helping hand, the work not only can become more pleasant, but also more effective, and can help reduce stress levels and workloads. Such culture cannot arise from good intentions alone, because many will not feel sufficient room or incentives to help others. Instead, we need to address the lack of funding and out-of-control competition, and we will have to adjust our organisation. This is already manifested in the way resources are deployed in governance agreements, and in ‘Recognition and Rewards’. But these are only the first steps in an overall change of culture, and therefore of organisation.

The inclusion of third parties: collaboration, exchange and internationalisation

In the example of the multiple ‘teams’, or networks, of our fictional employee Laila’s, we saw that these frequently extend beyond the organisational boundaries of the department, faculty and even the university. This is entirely in line with the development towards an open university we outlined in the previous chapters. Quality of research and education, and especially the university’s ‘third mission’ of societal impact, all benefit from collaboration beyond institutional boundaries. The labour market and other parts of society are increasingly internationally oriented, as Nuffic points out in its report ‘Internationalisation in focus’, and in the recommendations issued by the Education Council.^[10],[11] Being in contact with colleagues, clients or neighbours with a different cultural background is a day-to-day reality. So, it is important for graduates to develop international skills and competencies relevant for a multicultural society. These reports are supported by academic studies that highlight the added value of international students for education, both economically^[12] and for the quality of education^[13]. Other research shows that there are positive correlations between international collaboration, team-authorship, and the quality of publications.^[14] For the community, this means that internationalisation does not stop at welcoming international staff and students within the own organisation, but must also involve a multitude of contacts and networks outside one’s own university. This, too, is part of the ideal community we have in mind: permeable rather than closed. Such a community includes many ‘third parties’: colleagues from around the world, exchange students, and people from outside the university, such as industrial and societal partners involved in research, education, or organisation, but also professionals who participate in Continuing Education, and stakeholders such as patients, politicians or local citizens.

We must pay special attention to the international members of the community: students, employees and staff on temporary exchange assignments, and employees of foreign origin who are here for a longer period or permanently. National and international collaboration is an absolute must for high-quality research and education; quality and impact increase through the exchange of expertise and input from a global and diverse perspective. The fundamental need for international knowledge exchange is evident from the mere fact that it has been trafficked and exchanged since time immemorial. Stories about famous sages or scientific breakthroughs are, almost without exception, stories in which travel, meetings and discussion with others play a crucial role. The need for international collaboration has only become more urgent due to the complexity of the challenges we face, which are increasingly global in nature, and by the growing specialisation of knowledge. We therefore see a movement towards more structural exchanges and partnerships. Knowledge and experience are exchanged via a variety of networks, at a multitude of organisational and academic levels. For example, through the LERU, EUA, SURF^[15] and many other networks. Individual staff members also often have a rich network outside their own institution. We have also observed a rise in strategic alliances to intensify collaborations; not to exclude other contacts, but rather to stimulate and facilitate some specific contacts. International collaboration in research and education is dependent on Open Access, Open Code and FAIR Open Data being further developed in the Open Science programme.

Universities seek complementarity to optimise research and education thematically, as exemplified in the alliance between Utrecht University, TUe, Wageningen and UMC Utrecht. As part of the European University Initiative, there are now 41 alliances in the EU in which at least seven member institutes each work together on major themes. The UU is involved in CHARM-EU, which stands for ‘CHallenge-driven, Accessible, Research-based, Mobile European University’. Some collaborations, such as in the European University initiative or other research-education partnerships, often involve staff exchanges. Partnerships and communities therefore regularly cross university- and international borders. International students and staff, both visiting and through collaborations, are therefore an inseparable part of an internationally functioning university. Visiting international students and staff are almost always a minority at Dutch universities. This carries a risk of marginalisation and exclusion, because most of them - certainly the temporary students, staff or visitors - are not proficient in the Dutch language and are therefore shut out of some of the communication. Socio-culturally, too, it is not always easy for foreign students and staff to understand Dutch manners and the unwritten rules of the organisation. It is therefore vital for us to welcome international staff and students to the community, and to help them find their way through the tangle of written and unwritten rules. If we don’t, we leave untapped a huge potential of rich insights, knowledge, and commitment. If someone visits the university briefly, for a work visit or a short student exchange, then simple hospitality might be enough to make sure they feel welcome. If people come for a longer period, for example international staff or students, then it is important that they not only feel welcome, but also feel a sense of home and belonging to the community. As we mentioned in the introduction, there are many indications that this is currently often lacking. A mentor can help them make sense of the issues they encounter, while helping them bond with the organisation.^[16] Dutch classes can help them feel involved socially and in the organisation. Housing is a big bottleneck that needs to be solved. This is an issue among our staff, just as it is with students. The proportion of international students is growing, and that is desirable due to the rich input they can bring from the diversity of backgrounds. But there are some worrying reports that they are occasionally actively excluded by Dutch students. Sometimes Dutch student may be reluctant to invest the time and effort to befriend international students, because the international students will leave after one or two years. Also, there are feelings of competition for the extremely scarce student accommodations, or memberships of student associations. Many international students experience loneliness. Some exclusion may be unintentional, such as when other students or colleagues switch to speaking Dutch in a mixed group conversation. But intentional exclusion also occurs. For example, when a room becomes available in a student house, and it is indicated in advance that international students are not welcome.

The success of internationalisation should not be measured by intake figures or percentages, but by how at-home international staff or students feel, and whether their unique input is needed, seen and utilised. Investment in housing, but also in onboarding after enrolment or hiring is therefore absolutely necessary. From experience, we know that international students and staff regularly come up against the fact that they do not know the written or unwritten rules. How do you address a teacher, supervisor or research leader, for example? And in what tone of voice? Do you dare approach the person at all? Being proactive in approaching others and speaking up is something we expect from people in the Netherlands but this might be very dissimilar in other countries. So how do internationals find out about these social norms and values? That is only possible if you have colleagues you trust, to whom you dare to say what puzzles or bothers you. And who can provide you with supportive advice and feedback. If you bring in international students or staff as a university, you also have to take care of them. Through facilities, but certainly also through our attitude and behaviour. ‘Open’ as a basis for the university and its education can only be a success if students and staff actually develop and display a curious, open attitude. Open to society, but therefore also towards temporary or permanent students or staff from other backgrounds. We need to reflect on how good we are at thinking outside our (Western) box. If we realise that it is not easy and we have somethings to learn there, international members can actually hold up an important mirror to the university community. The extra effort we invest then becomes an added value. We also need to invest in language courses. Specifically, English language courses for all university employees who are willing to learn, because it is increasingly important to be able to express oneself comfortably in English, no matter whether you work as university personnel in academic or support roles, and regardless of your level of education. Vice-versa we need to invest in Dutch language courses for everyone with a foreign language background. For temporary visitors, a short introduction to Dutch language and culture can help them participate in the community in a pleasant and effective way. For permanent international staff, an intensive Dutch course may be helpful to participate fully in the community and Dutch society in general. And it should not just be about skills: managers and colleagues should focus on providing them with a warm welcome. Do we check what language we speak when an international participant arrives? or do we just continue to speak Dutch, which can make someone feel excluded? And do we pay attention not only to the formal start, which is often already provided, but also informally to the culture of each team? Ideally, every team should regularly pay attention to motivating team members who feel less involved. That definitely includes attention for new international team members, not only in terms of the substance of their work, but also for them as a person; to help them find their way in the organisation, the country and the culture, and to feel welcome.

Towards a new way of recognising and rewarding

An open team culture can only develop if we fundamentally change how we recognise and reward our staff’s efforts. The current academic and non-academic staff rewards system is extremely individual-oriented; see Chapter 1 and 2. This has to change: not because we are idealists, but because team spirit is what will create the next step in research, education and societal outreach. Take education as an example. For too long, education has been perceived of as a solo task. With all its consequences: fragmented programmes, mediocre teaching, and low visibility. By approaching education much more as a team effort, we can dramatically improve the quality of education. Teachers, students, professional experts, and stakeholders can sharpen each other’s subject knowledge by brainstorming together and giving each other feedback. Involvement also provides motivation, and teamwork between teachers strengthens the coherence within programmes. As we write these words, it is incredible to think that we still often see education as a solo activity.

The relationship between research and education has also come under pressure due to the one-sided valuation of research performance for individual careers, even though education can and should nurture research, and vice-versa. Research is the basis for academic education, and teaching helps the researcher reflect on the significance of their research and to situate it within recent developments. Students’ own questions or research can also contribute directly to research: students offer diverse and creative thinking potential and tapping into it both supports their development and can contribute to new knowledge.^[17] In this context, it is sometimes referred to as the ‘research-teaching nexus’.^[18] How strange, then, that education is regularly ‘outsourced’ to junior employees or temporary staff. How strange that education receives so little attention and appreciation and is perceived as detrimental to academic careers. Yet, that is precisely the consequence of the current measurement and reward system. The enormous pressure of publication metrics and unilateral rewarding of research in academic careers are now recognised around the world as major problems for the quality of research, education, and service to society. Nationwide, a major academic culture shift has been underway in the Netherlands since 2019, under the heading ‘Recognition and Rewards’. Utrecht University has been implementing this national programme through the TRIPLE vision: Teamwork, Research, Impact, Professional performance, Leadership, and Education.^{[19],[20],[21]} The vision seeks to optimize impact from research, education, and professional activities through strengthening teamwork and leadership, and by allow for diverse and dynamic careers. In line with its choice to diminish the gap between personnel in academic and other roles, Utrecht choose to extend the TRIPLE vision to all university personnel, so apply the vision both to academic and non-academic careers. Leadership plays an indispensable role in this vision. Especially in the form of ‘serving’, or empowering, leadership.^[22] Servant leaders strengthen employees’ commitment and willingness to go the extra mile. Teamwork and leadership are the two fundamental principles that guide how we treat each other.

A change in metrics and in the way we assess performance is essential to create more synergy and dynamism between the areas in which we aim for output. Although the programme ‘Recognition and Rewards’ is a national one, the movement to renew academic assessment is not limited to the Netherlands, as we mentioned in Chapter 2 and 3. Nor could it be, because as universities we always operate in an international context. Whilst the Netherlands is operating in the forefront of this movement, the discussion is rapidly expanding to the rest of Europe and throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. A successful implementation of Recognition and Rewards will contribute to teams-based approaches to research and education. It will enable us to install talent policies that are less focused on individual excellence in a single field, but look for ways to optimize team performance, and recognize everyone’s contribution to that performance. In the new Recognition and Rewards system according to TRIPLE, teams and their diversity and inclusiveness are essential to the quality of work. Support staff, stakeholders, students, along with academics, are essential for the university to function well as a community and to achieve its goals. Everyone’s contribution is vital, and part of the university’s great shared mission. Recent developments in research assessment as agreed to by Dutch universities in the ‘Strategy Evaluation Protocol’ (SEP) show that it is possible to move from quantitative to qualitative measures.^[23] And that it is also quite feasible to include issues such as openness, safety, inclusiveness and scientific integrity in the assessment of teams and thus support desired cultural change.

Leadership and communication

A collective feeling and shared mission require us to listen to each other, to hear each other from different layers and corners of the university. Leadership and communication are crucial here.

The nature of the university’s core missions - research, education and societal impact - means that there is a high degree of subject-matter expertise and professional autonomy. This is a great asset, but it does not absolve us from teamwork or assuming our societal responsibility. Instead, it means that everyone’s expertise should benefit the various teams, and the bigger picture. To work together on the university’s larger mission - utilising the great diversity of expertise available - it is crucial to stimulate internal debate. We must harness the wealth of viewpoints, expertise, and experience within the community as a whole, and strengthen the commitment of each individual member of that community as a shared narrative emerges. Academic leadership plays a major role in this effort and is, for good reason, one of the pillars of the recognition and rewards developments outlined above. Leadership includes both formal and informal leadership. It involves people from all levels of the community, actively contributing to formulating the collective narrative and constantly take it a step further. People who take the initiative and ensure that the multitude of voices are heard. Leadership also entails being able to follow. Once choices have been made on the basis of broad input, leaders have to be able to motivate others to engage and ensure that everyone knows how to contribute. Leadership therefore plays a role at all levels, from all work floors up to the Executive Board. Displaying leadership means taking responsibility and caring for each other and for the university. Poor leadership has been identified as one of the main causes of social unsafety.^[24] Strengthening leadership is high on the agenda of all Dutch universities in the national Recognition and Rewards programme, as we have explained elsewhere in this chapter.

One of the big challenges we have mentioned above is collaborating across all the different layers in the organisation. There is a strong hierarchy within the university, based on academic status, age and experience, roles, and positions. We measure one another along many axes. This colours our input, either consciously or unconsciously. It is of course good for us to recognise and use experience and expertise. But that only works if we all act as both followers and leaders. First understand, and then be understood. Nobody has all the wisdom in every domain. Teamwork breaks down when positions are abused, or when the gap grows too wide. Then cooperation breaks down, certain opinions are structurally ignored, and we run the risk of developing blind spots. Teamwork also breaks down when communication fails, or when there are conflicting messages between the formal, desired vision and communication and the actual lived culture. A common analogy is that of an organisation with an iceberg: part of the iceberg is visible - the formal structure and policies - but a much larger portion is hidden underwater - the organisational culture. So, in an ideal organisation, there is a clear vision and mission expressed in both word and deed. People also know how they can contribute to that mission; which cog, no matter how modest, they themselves represent in the larger wheel of the organisation. To be able to work as a community on a shared mission, distances between managers and work place have to be bridgeable and permeable, with managers preferably also themselves participating on the work floor. There must be an active exchange, and managers must listen carefully to ensure that all on the work floor feel seen and represented and can participate in strategic decisions. The part of the iceberg underwater must be included in changes that take place above water, and vice-versa.

In short, the workplace culture and the organisational structure and formal policies all need to change together. We already hold a vast number of meetings, and we already experience a plethora of ‘silos’ and fragmentation. So the solution is not adding more meetings and committees, but in improving our relationships and trust. Employee participation bodies, such as the university council, play an important role in connecting across the layers of the organisation. It is vital that a large and diverse group of students and employees are active in the council. And that they not only have a reactive and reviewing role, but also a proactive, signalling, initiating and brainstorming role, so that communication is truly a two-way street. In addition to formal participation, there must be effective communication between individuals, within and between teams, and inside and outside the organisation. This communication must be both vertical and horizontal, because we must not forget the ‘sideways’ conversation in addition to the vertical conversation. The focus is often on the hierarchical line of communication, but it is perhaps just as important to stay in touch in the breadth; between faculties, research groups or different support departments. Exchanging knowledge and experiences, and being aware of each other’s strengths and challenges, builds understanding and a sense of togetherness. A good example is when our university had a shortage of teaching spaces. The vice deans of education of the various faculties explicitly agreed to share the pain as evenly as possible, and not let it be a problem for the faculties that happened to be suffering most at the time. Their short-term self-interest was subordinated to long-term collective interest by not introducing competition for scarce resources, but by striving to optimise collective resources. That might sound logical from an overarching perspective, but it is certainly not a given in large organisations. This is a culture we definitely want to build on for the future.

So, we want to build a community that works together to accomplish our mission, and for that we need communication. Nothing sounds as easy in theory, but is as difficult in practice, as communication. We do it all day long, and yet it is perhaps the biggest challenge in a large organisation like the university. Because how do you make sure everyone is connected? Meetings are important, but the quality of meetings is even more important than their quantity. And that requires trust in each other, and openness. Leadership at all levels of the university plays a crucial role in creating that trust; in cultivating an open, safe culture and encouraging teamwork. In the medical world, the report ‘To err is human’ woke up many to the fact that communication is crucial.^[25] The report studied a large number of incidents, and as many as two out of three serious incidents involved problems in communication. Other famous, or perhaps we should say infamous, lessons come from the aviation industry. Events such as the 1990 crash of Avianca flight 52 in New York, when the message ‘running out of fuel’ was not understood as an urgent distress signal, make it clear that language and communication is not as simple as it seems.^[26] Every human makes mistakes, both unintentional and intentional, and that cannot be avoided. But in a well-functioning organisation, cooperation, consultation, and proper procedures can prevent them from leading to crucial errors for the outcome. In the case of the ‘To err is human’ report, the errors resulted in harm to patients, but the principles apply equally well to functioning in other areas. So: good communication is crucial.

A natural tendency to encourage communication is to strive to introduce more structural consultations, but in the ideal university, meetings are used sparingly, and the main focus is on the quality of these consultations. We should pay more attention to informal conversations. Our approach to meetings should be to focus on main issues and leave details to those tasked with the execution. Rather than monitor each other, we want to have confidence in each other and in the teams’ ability to contribute optimally to these main lines of implementation. That, in turn, frees up space for a thorough execution of primary tasks, for much-needed rest and reflection, for inspiration from spontaneous encounters, and for moments of relaxation; to be ready for peak performance at other times.

In addition to a good communication and consultation structure, an open community requires a culture in which holding each other accountable is completely normal. At the university, miscommunication fortunately does not have immediate fatal consequences, but we should still be aware that many risks lurk here. It is enormously challenging to organise efficient - and at the same time, open - communication in a large organisation. It is not easy to ensure that important (opposing) voices are heard. And you can’t do that with procedures alone. The most important factor for this is the culture and an attitude that people are jointly responsible for what happens; where giving and accepting feedback is seen as a process of improvement, and not criticism. That entails listening carefully and developing an open attitude. The way people organise themselves evolves over time, but the university as an organisation seems to be lagging in some ways. We’ll discuss this in more detail in the chapter on employee participation.

The university as a meeting place

To realise its societal mission, the university must be a meeting place. A place where citizens meet students and researchers; a place where societal stakeholders bring in real-life problems and gain insights; a place where scientific debate and knowledge exchange take place through incoming and outgoing visits. Public engagement, co-creation, and many other desirable developments as outlined in the other chapters all require personal encounters and collaboration.

But before we look outside, let’s take a look inside, bringing together a number of issues from previous paragraphs. To create a climate that fosters optimal performance, well-being is key. Social cohesion is key to building a healthy working climate. The university is a huge organisation. It can feel great to be a part of it, but you can also very easily feel lost and alone. People therefore must have a ‘home base’, despite (or precisely because of) the multitude of teams we described above. It is essential to be seen and known as a person within the large organisation. In an ideal university, it is important that everyone also has a smaller team they belong to, in addition to feeling part of the big picture called the university. A group of people with whom you feel safe and known; somewhere you can tell your stories, and where people miss you when you’re not there; where you feel valued and supported. From the field of motivation theory, we know how important connectedness is.^[27] We all have a need to belong somewhere. Motivation for your work and enjoying your study are crucial both for the quality of performance and mental well-being. So, we need to actively invest in social cohesion. Incentivising team-based work alone is not enough. Because, indeed, the necessity of cooperation brings people together. But where some may have an obvious home base, others may be part of so many different teams that a sense of a ‘home’ base may be more difficult to achieve. So, it is very important in the ideal university to always be mindful of that, and to create home bases when necessary. In education, we do that through tutor groups: smaller circles of students within a larger cohort. But it can also be arranged through voluntary social activities or structures. Actively investing in cohesion and social activities is necessary, whether by organising a departmental outing, a brainstorm day, or after-work drinks for networking. One experiment going on at the moment is organising ‘academic families’: people from different parts of a faculty form a mixed ‘family’ together, a group of people with whom you choose to become socially connected. This allows you get to know other people, and they get to know you, which sometimes means you gain insight into parts of the university you would otherwise hardly see. The current pilot project involves students and academics, but this can eventually be extended to represent the entire community. Whether this will work remains to be seen; there may be too little that binds the members of an academic family for this to be an effective tool. If so, we need to look for other ways to promote social cohesion. Because if we want our community to be a warm beating heart, then there must be a home base for everyone in it.

Besides looking inwards, we can also to look outwards. Here, too, we refer to the previous paragraphs. We have already emphasised that collaborations should extend beyond the boundaries of an institute, and that stakeholder involvement is of eminent importance for education and research. But it is also important to be open to a wide audience, to play a role in the city. This applies in a substantive sense by contributing through our activities: ‘think globally, act locally’. But it also applies in a socio-cultural sense: the university and its community are inherently linked to the city and region in which they are located.

Such a city, in our case Utrecht, experiences both the joys and burdens of the academic community. The ‘joys’ include aspects like employment and a large market for cultural and hospitality offerings. The ‘burdens’ include the added pressure on the housing market. But, ideally, citizens from the community should also feel involved and feel welcome at the university, whether through the university museum, open days, public activities, outreach activities to schools or organisations, or buildings that combine university functions with public functions such as the university library or University Hall in the city centre.

And that brings us to the physical presence of the university. We started this chapter by emphasising the community rather than the buildings, but here we want to take a moment to reflect on the importance of the university as a physical meeting place, both for the public and for the university community. If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we can do a lot online, but something essential is also lost when we cannot meet in person. Among our students, there are concerns about mental health, but also about socialization and subjectification as important goals of education. Among staff, concerns arose about heavy workloads and mental well-being, but also about missing social cohesion and inspiration. Conversations soured and flattened, and there is less room for putting out feelers to sense how people feel, what drives them or bothers them, what can cause or escalate conflicts, and what obstructs the generation and sharing of knowledge. We can also put those experiences to positive use. After all, we have all discovered exactly how important and crucial personal encounters are. University buildings and public space around them form the backdrop for these encounters, whether it is a campus like the Utrecht Science Park, or buildings in an inner city.

In the future, a new balance will emerge between working from home and in the office. The image of a building with many cubicles and closed doors can be scrapped; after all, you come to the university to meet each other. At the same time, if only part of the team is on location at any one time, there is a risk that meetings remain mostly hybrid. Instead, meetings should be on location as much as possible to facilitate connection and creativity. And we should use meetings sparingly, so that people also have time for spontaneous meetings in the corridor and around the coffee machine. The rest of the time, employees can concentrate on their work, either at university or at home. This new way of working will take shape in the coming years, but what is certain is that the university’s physical environment will therefore become more important for its social aspects, for encounters and inspiration.

Because the social aspects are so important, during studies and also at work, a campus should serve as more than just a place to work, study, or hold meetings. Ideally, the campus is a place where you want to be, and where it is difficult to choose from the wide and attractive range of educational-, research-, cultural and social activities. Catering and leisure facilities are a crucial part of a living campus, as is a rich selection of cultural and sports activities. You can work or study at home or at another place where you can concentrate, but you go to ‘the uni’ for personal encounters and inspiration. It should be a place where you can make or experience music, theatre and dance together, admire architecture or take walks through the surrounding nature or the botanical gardens. Academic activities also have a place here, and together with cultural and social activities, they can contribute to broadening everyone’s development, from students to employees. These activities can also have a public function. A great example is the public lectures that were spontaneously organised around the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, where experts placed recent developments in geopolitical context for students, staff and other interested visitors. Of a similar nature were the public lectures in which the COVID pandemic was discussed from medical, biomedical, but also cultural and social perspectives. Initiatives like these reinforce the formation of a community where you learn with and from each other. The joy, inspiration, and connectedness that such rich campus life can provide, contributes to a healthy, effective and inclusive community.

Conclusion

As we have emphasised several times before, the ideal university of the future is explicitly connected to society and is an integral part of it. As society is constantly changing, the university must also constantly rethink and adapt. Such agility requires a learning organisation. An organisation that doesn’t start from the status quo and focusses on maintaining it, but one that is aware of the need to change and actively searches for new ways of working and new ways of organizing the work. An organisation that constantly and critically reflects on itself, explores what can be done differently, and faces the difficulties that come with change.

In this process, external communication and debate are just as important as internal communication and debate. The community is open to and in contact with many relevant stakeholders outside the university walls. Making our work public is an integral part of our activities, but it involves more than just transmitting. It also contributes to reviews of our activities, and reflection on what the university exists for. A great initiative that reflects this vision is the Faces of Open Science project, see Inset 4.2.

The university as an organisation is centuries-old. But we have to realise that the organisation needs to be much more flexible than it has been in the past. For instance, it is currently quite clear that collaboration across faculty lines is increasingly vital for inter- or transdisciplinary research and education, and that current financial and organisational structures sometimes hinder it. In Utrecht, as elsewhere, we are looking for solutions to facilitate cross-faculty collaboration through structures such as university-wide strategic research themes, or educational innovation funds that reward cross-faculty initiatives. Above all, however, we must realise that there is no ideal organisational structure that always provides the best answer. The university will have to constantly reorient and reinvent itself. And that will require a humble and learning organisation.

Inset 4.2. Faces of Open Science.^[28]

Design: FABRIEKFANATIEK Melle MijnhardtUtrecht University works to build a better world with an open perspective, an open attitude and open science. Open Science is a vital element of this effort. The university is working on making science open in a variety of ways: through the connection with society, access to knowledge and data, and how we work together within the scientific community. That means the Open Science movement has many faces and is constantly evolving, both nationally and internationally. At UU, we believe it is important to make this diversity visible and bring it up for discussion, because critics should also have a voice in the culture change. We want to give ‘an inside look’ at internal discussions and tensions, to keep the Open Science movement open to a wider audience. Faces of Open Science illustrates that open attitude.^[29] The Faces of Open Science Project (FOS) was set up as part of The Open Science Programme at Utrecht University. With this project, we aim to shape a diverse community within UU that collaborates on science in the heart of society. We started by gaining insight into the wide range of people currently collaborating on Open Science, and the variety of ideal academies they envision and that they are creating through their work (phase 1: March 2021- June 2022). Then, based on these individuals and their ideal academies, we designed tools and work formats to facilitate self-awareness among diverse groups (both academic and support staff) within Utrecht University and the University Medical Centre Utrecht. The goal is to encourage people working at UU to implement Open Science practices within their own academic context (in both education and research). (Phase 1.2: April 2023 - June 2023). Then we move on to encouraging and training various groups in the UU to develop the products of FOS in their own academic environment, and to work there to create a healthy and productive community (Phase 2: start December 2024).These personalities and ideal academies are based on private in-depth interviews among key players within the Open Science movement at Utrecht University, who form a representative group of the movement’s diversity. The interviews are based on questions regarding the interviewees’ personal (academic) history, its impact on their views on science in relation to society and scientific knowledge, and how their views on Open Science are based on these factors. The interviews were coded and analysed to identify recurring themes and differences in interviewees’ views. The results were distilled and regrouped into 11 personalities and four ideal academies.Relevant links to background information over FOS are available at the UU Open Science webpage^[30],[31] and via https://osf.io/wzrg8/.

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8. Smith, C. A., Organ, D. W. & Near, J. P. (1983). Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Its Nature and Antecedents. Journal of Applied Psychology, 68(4), 653-63. doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.68.4.653 ↑

9. Mohammad, J., Quoquab Habib, F. & Adnan Alias, M. (2011). Job Satisfaction and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour: An Empirical Study at Higher Learning Institutions. Asian Academy of Management Journal, 16(2), 149-65. ↑

10. Education Council. (2016). Internationaliseren met Ambitie. Retrieved from: onderwijsraad.nl ↑

11. Education Council. (2016). Internationalisering in het Hoger Onderwijs. Retrieved from: onderwijsraad.nl ↑

12. Kamm, E. and Liebig, T. (2022). Retention and economic impact of international students in the OECD. International Migration Outlook. oecd-ilibrary.org/ ↑

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14. Fortunato, S., Bergstrom, C. T., Börner, K., Evans, J. A., Helbing, D., Milojević, S., Petersen, A. M., Radicchi, F., Sinatra, R., Uzzi, B., Vespignani, A., Waltman, L., Wang, D. & Barabási, A. L. (2018). Science of Science. Science, 359(6379), 1-7. doi.org/10.1126/science.aao0185 ↑

15. Respectively: “League of European Research Universities”, “European University Association”, and “Samenwerking Universitaire RekenFaciliteiten”. SURF is a partnership of Dutch universities, universities of applied sciences, UMCs, vocational education institutes and research institutes in the field of ICT (innovations). ↑

16. Smith, B. (2013). Mentoring At-Risk Students Through the Hidden Curriculum of Higher Education. Lexington Books. ↑

17. Drost, R. H., Dictus, W. J. A. G., Prakken, B. J. & Bovenschen, N. (2019). How a Four-Year-Old Boy Connects Healthcare, Biomedical Research and Undergraduate Education. Nature Biotechnology, 37(9), 1092-5. doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0245-5 ↑

18. Healey, M. (2005). Linking Research and Teaching to Benefit Student Learning. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 29(2), 183-201. doi.org/10.1080/03098260500130387 ↑

19. Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO). (2019). Position paper ‘Ruimte voor ieders talent’. nwo.nl/position-paper-ruimte-voor-ieders-talent ↑

20. Werkgroep Erkennen en Waarderen. (2021).Visie Erkennen en Waarderen Universiteit Utrecht. Utrecht University. Retrieved from: uu.nl ↑

21. Utrecht University. (2020, December 1). The World Does Not Benefit from Scientists Being ‘One-Trick-Ponies: Utrecht University Pioneers for a New System of Recognition and Rewards. The Chronicle of Higher Education. chronicle.com/paid-content/utrecht-university/the-world-does-not-benefit-from-scientists-being-one-trick-ponys ↑

22. Mostafa, A. M. S. & Bottomley, P. A. (2020). Self-Sacrificial Leadership and Employee Behaviours: An Examination of the Role of Organizational Social Capital. Journal of Business Ethics, 161(3), 641-52. doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-3964-5 ↑

23. VSNU, KNAW & NWO. (2020). Strategy Evaluation Protocol 2021-2027. Retrieved from: universiteitenvannederland.nl ↑

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25. Institute of Medicine, Committee on Quality of Health Care in America, Kohn, L. T., Corrigan, J. M. & Donaldson, M. S. (2000). To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. National Academies Press. ↑

26. Patty, A. (2016, October 2). Fatal consequences of miscommunication between pilots and air traffic controllers. The Sunday Morning Herald. ↑

27. Deci, E. E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (2012). Self-Determination Theory. In P. A. M. van Lange, A. W. Kruglanski & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology (pp. 416-36). Sage Publications Ltd. ↑

28. Authors Inset: Susanna Bloem and Martijn van der Meer. ↑

29. If you would like to find out more, please feel free to listen to the podcast: open.spotify.com/episode/5s435lLwFcIPMjv6IxZugB

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30. See: uu.nl/onderzoek/open-science ↑

31. Bloem, S., Van der Meer, M. & Mijnhardt, M. (2024). Faces of Open Science. Faces of Open Science project (FOS), Utrecht University. ↑