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Reflecting on UYA activities over the past months, I notice that reflection has been a recurrent theme, inside and outside Utrecht University. Reflection over the Dutch colonial history, that occurred on a governmental level the past year, and I assume also in society at large, made a big impression on me. Particularly as I was just reading Revolusi, David van Reybroucks reconstruction of the colonial history of what is now Indonesia. Reflection also by our university board when it comes to ties with the fossil fuel industry. A crucial discussion to be had, and one in which everybody, those for and those against those collaborations, seek clarity and directions by the university board. Below, Sanne reflects on the open discussions that were held in our university, that were used to clarify the universities policies and procedures when it comes to collaborations with the fossil fuel industry. I was also part of one of these discussion sessions and was happy to conclude that 3 years after UYA presented the climate pledge, the discussion is finally rolling. The Climate Group of UYA obviously follows these developments up close.
Boy, has UYA been busy over the past months! So busy that this newsletter had to wait a bit to be sent out, but here it is. This newsletter will show you all the great things that have been developed at UYA. We welcomed the 7th generation of UYA members! The new members quickly found their way into various committees and ongoing projects. Several of them are involved in the projects you see highlighted below, among others the initiation of the AI helpdesk, the profiling project of this year. Behind the scenes, UYA also did a great deal of housekeeping: the governance committee reviewed the rules and procedures and proposed adjustments, simplifications and edits. The new academic year will start with the launch of two awards at UYA! The binding theme of the two awards is that they both aim to recognize efforts in our university that are easily overlooked but do deserve to be put into the spotlights.
Peter Bijl
Chair of the Utrecht Young Academy
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| Nomations opened for the new UYA Purple Crocodile Award
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| Administration, forms and complex procedures secretly steal away time that should be spent on core activities in our university: research, teaching and patient care. Luckily, many people in our university are working towards minimizing time spent on administration. With this award, we aim to recognize those unsung heroes in our university that consider the administrative burden as a problem and work towards minimizing it, to relieve work pressure and allow more time to be spent on the university/UMC’s core activities. The award consists of a challenge award and a small monetary prize (300 euros). The idea is for the winner to spend this money to building out team spirits even further. UYA is very much looking forward to see the nominations for this award come in!
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| Have a look at the new survey that has been launched on academic freedom at Utrecht University. Designed by the 2022 Generation of UYA, this UYA project aims to gather experiences of academic freedom at Utrecht University in the realms of teaching, research and publishing. The project has been kicked off with a survey, which is designed to explore (i) the ways in which academic staff define and understand ‘academic freedom’ and (ii) the circumstances in which they feel that it is restricted or under pressure. The project will continue with several town hall meetings which have the aim of discussing how academic freedom is experienced by academic staff members. The overriding objective of the project is to shed light on how the issue of academic freedom is experienced, challenged, and protected at Utrecht University. It is hoped that the project's findings will provide an impetus for further research on the topic, further debate and discussion, and the development of more policy on the matter.
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| UYA Statement on the proposed Language Act (Taalwet)
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The academic year 2022-23 ended with a major discussion on internationalization, particularly with a focus on the Ministry of Education’s attempt to regulate the language of instruction at Dutch Universities. This discussion raised concerns within the Dutch academic community, especially among international students and staff. As members of Utrecht Young Academy, we find it important to share and to highlight some of the concerns we have about the potential (un)intended consequences of the language act. In the following statement, we call for a cautious deliberation, advocate for universities’ autonomy and the provision of resources to sustain decades of internationalization efforts.
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| A Voice for Young Academics
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| The Utrecht Young Academy gives a voice to young academics by reaching out to policymakers in order to influence science and education policy in and outside Utrecht. Within Utrecht University, the chair of UYA is a member of the Advisory Committee Research (Adviescommissie Onderzoek). We are also represented through our members amongst others in the Public Engagement Taskforce and the Open Science Community Utrecht.
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| Special issue on interdisciplinary teaching
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| A special issue was published on interdisciplinary teaching using traveling concepts. The contributors were all UYA members of the interdisciplinary teaching and learning committee. The special issue can be read via the button below.
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UYA undertakes several activities aimed at the climate crisis. For instance, we supported a letter, sent in January 2023, to all University Boards in the Netherlands by Scientists For Future (S4F), requesting to transfer all banking and insurance activities to sustainable banks. Follow-up conversations are still ongoing, also via the umbrella organisations UNL and NVB. You can contact Valentijn Karemaker for more information on this topic.
Several UYA members participated in deep democracies earlier this year, organized by the CvB, to discuss the choice and associated consequences to let go of collaborations with so-called fossil fuel companies. These deep democracies are part of a larger trajectory, to set up a framework to ensure proper and ethical collaborations.
Lastly, all Young Academies, including DJA, met up to discuss potential collaboration opportunities to facilitate discussions and actions towards sustainability in three key pillars: operations of the university (buildings, travel policy etc.), research and education. For research we for instance deem it beneficial to collaborate and discuss the fossil fuel collaboration case, and for education we discussed opportunities for offering sustainability courses to all higher education students in the Netherlands. A next step for this collaboration is to set up a Green Academy structure, hopefully resulting in some funds to accommodate these plans. You can contact Sanne Akerboom for more information on these two topics.
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New Members Nomination Round
Soon, the nominations for the new generation of UYA members will open! This year, members can be nominated by (vice-)deans, directors of strategic programmes, and PhD-councils.
Trial and Error Award
A project team of UYA members and staff of the Journal of Trial & Error (JOTE) are working on a “Trial and Error Award”. The award itself will be designed by art students from the St Lucas school in Boxtel.
Major Review UYA Governance Rules & Regulations
The Governance Committee has been busy reviewing the Standing Rules and Regulations of the Utrecht Young Academy over the last six months, together with the Selection Rules and Nomination Form. The need to review these documents was spurred by changing legislation on privacy, the university's policy on Recognition and Rewards and a feeling that some of the old rules did not fit the UYA's preferred working methods. This major review has now finished and the changes will be presented to the General Assembly in September 2023.
AI Helpdesk
Members of the Interdisciplinary Research group in collaboration with other members of UYA are starting a new project: The AI Helpdesk. With this project we aim to inquire questions about AI of the general public and will answer these in a peer-reviewed manner. The project was generously funded by UYA as a profiling project.
Check out our website or follow us on Twitter to stay up to date with our projects and events.
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