UYA External Newsletter: October 2026 |
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How can we be more caring within academia? |
This is a question we have  been asking ourselves with increasing urgency in recent times.The past few years have been marked by serious budget cuts, increasing polarization, and work pressure. For that reason, the Utrecht Young Academy (UYA) aims to open a conversation about the kind of university we want Utrecht University to be.
A university is not only a place of knowledge production and transmission, but also a community in which people study, work, supervise, support, and depend on one another. We care about each other as colleagues, we care about our projects, our students, our university. Yet, we do not always have the time to care or lack the opportunities to do so. So how can care become a more visible and meaningful part of university life?
With the Recognition and Rewards Movement we are certainly moving in the right direction and we are proud that Utrecht University is at the front of this movement. We know that innovation is more than publications and H-index and that it is rarely the product of a single individual. Innovation requires strong leadership, collaborative teamwork, impactful outcomes, and we do all this because we care. This applies equally to teaching and research. Although this understanding is not new, its formal institutionalization is. Within the UYA, we are proud to play an active role in shaping our University in this regard.
Yet, there is still much to be done. The UYA report Promotion under TRIPLE shows that early-career researchers in particular experience increasing work pressure and growing expectations. For the UYA, care is essential to tackle these issues, and it can take many forms, such as listening to colleagues and students who are struggling and helping to create an inclusive and safe working environment. Care thus means taking responsibility through leadership and mentoring.
Informal care alone, however, is not enough. Care must be embedded structurally within the university. This requires policies that allow a realistic workload and foster inclusion, giving colleagues the opportunity to contribute and grow, regardless of their caregiving responsibilities at home, their background or their accessibility needs. It also means creating space and time for colleagues to support one another, without this work becoming yet another invisible task. In our recent event with Albert Meijer on Slow Academia, we talked about what is needed to take the time to care and to think and that individual approaches are valuable, but that change needs to happen on the structural level. Because we are all more creative, innovative and collaborative when we feel supported and when we have time to think.
At the UYA we hope to contribute to the understanding of care by continuously reflecting on policy developments, societal and academic discussions, while maintaining a critical, open, and caring mindset. Throughout this academic year, the UYA will explore different dimensions of care. Through the Against the Clock Project, we will consider the care many of us provide beyond the university, within our families, and how these responsibilities intersect with academic life. The Sustainability Manifesto addresses the care our environment urgently requires and the institutional changes needed to provide it. Through our work on Recognition and Rewards, we will continue to explore how we care for one another as academics and how the university can recognize and support these contributions.
Fortunately, not everything at the UYA is serious. This year, the UYA turns 10 years, and we are already looking forward to celebrating this milestone with our members, alumni and friends. And don’t forget: this year, self-nomination for UYA membership is open!
Yours,
Verena Seibel and Andrik Becht
Chair and Vice Chair of the Utrecht Young Academy
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Call for new members
The call for the next selection round of new members is out! This year it is a self-nomination round, meaning that candidates can nominate themselves instead of needing to be dominated by a dean or alumnus. The call for nominations is posted on the UYA-website, Intranet and the UYA-LinkedIn. If you know someone who qualifies and would be a great addition to UYA, please forward the call to them! The application deadline is the 15th of November, 23:59. Please see the call on the UYA website and the nomination form using the link below.
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Information sessions
This year, every faculty will hold a short UYA information session for people interested in applying as a UYA member (or people who are simply curious about UYA). During these sessions, interested colleagues can ask questions about the selection procedure and UYA in general. Have a look at our homepage if you want to know more. For any questions, please contact uya@uu.nl. |
Current Projects
There are currently seven ongoing projects within the Utrecht Young Academy, each with different objectives. Read below about recent updates and future plans for the current projects.
Academic Freedom
Research shows that academic freedom is increasingly under pressure in the Netherlands. The Utrecht Young Academy ran a survey in 2023 and 2025 to see how researchers across the Utrecht University experience academic freedom in three areas:
- Teaching
- Research
- Communicating findings
UYA ran the same survey in 2023 and in 2025 with open-ended and closed questions to see whether perceptions of academic freedom had shifted during this period.
The survey was distributed on faculty noticeboards and newsletters, but still the uptake was rather small with 287 people taking part in 2023 and 129 people taking part in 2025. Although the small uptake constitutes something to bear in mind when studying the report, it does not detract from the ability of the results to demonstrate trends and patterns in the manner in which academic freedom is experienced. The main findings of the study are as follows:
- Academic freedom is highly valued among UU staff, with a small statistically significant increase in perceived importance between 2023 and 2025.
- UU staff are moderately satisfied with the academic freedom they experience, and their perceptions are fairly stable. However, there is much room for improvement, and there has been a minor decline in the perceived academic freedom in all three domains (teaching, research and dissemination).
- Academic freedom seems to be comparatively vulnerable in contexts of research dissemination to a wide audience. UU staff feel most free to discuss socially or politically sensitive research findings with colleagues and superiors, and least free when engaging with modern mass media and social media.
- Non-Dutch and junior staff perceive lower levels of academic freedom.
- Less favourable scores can also be observed in the Humanities Faculty.
Please read the full report using the link below. Any questions or comments? Please contact Reine van der Wal (r.c.vanderwal@uu.nl), Katharine Fortin (k.m.a.fortin@uu.nl), or Margreet van Es (m.a.vanes@uu.nl)
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Ten to Twelve in the Workplace: Exhibition & townhall coming this fall
Our Ten to Twelve in the Workplace project (Sleepless in Academia follow-up) is headingtoward its finale! We're aiming to wrap uparound September/October with a first travelling photo exhibition in the Bestuursgebouw, capturing stories of parenthood in academia, paired with a UYA townhall meeting on the topic of ‘challenges for the caring university’.
Picture from the series. "Working around the clock''
Promotion under TRIPLE
In 2022, Utrecht University introduced the TRIPLE promotion model to recognise academics’ contributions across six domains: Team Spirit, Research, Impact, Professional Performance, Leadership and Education.
To examine how the model works in practice, the Utrecht Young Academy surveyed 147 assistant and associate professors from across the university. Respondents recognised TRIPLE’s potential to create fairer and more diverse academic career paths. However, many found the promotion criteria unclear or inconsistently applied. Three-quarters experienced increased pressure to perform across multiple domains, while one-third reported negative effects on their mental health.
UYA therefore recommends clearer promotion pathways, better guidance from supervisors, and career development that builds individual strengths instead of expecting excellence in every domain.
Since publishing the report, UYA has continued to bring these findings into institutional and national discussions. UYA participated in Sanli Faez’s Fairly Recognized podcast and was interviewed by DUB. UYA also presented the findings to UU’s HR Knowledge Circle and to the National Recognition & Rewards Breed, contributed to plans for improving communication about TRIPLE, and provided input for Utrecht University’s Institutional Quality Assurance Assessment by the NVAO.
Read the report using the link below and learn more about the project.
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Springboard for Academic and Research Creativity (SpARC)
The overall aim of the SpARC Academy is to tackle the challenge many academics face but rarely discuss openly, the loss of creativity and joy in their work due to increasing pressure to publish, secure funding,
and meet performance targets. Within the SpARC Academy, UYA wants to offer a space wherescholars can break free from rigid structures and reconnect with their passion. Through unconventional workshops and creative explorations, we blend insights from the arts, sciences, creative industries, and leadership training to spark fresh perspectives and collaborations.
Our goal is to make creativity and joy central, not incidental to academic excellence. So far, SpARC has initiated several workshops to follow this goal, ranging from creative writing workshops to Sculpting workshops and aDesign Thinking Workshop.
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EWUU innovation grant for transdisciplinary course on ‘The Future of the University’
The EWUU alliance has granted UYA member Marij Swinkels, together with Chantal Brans (TU/e) and Judith Gulikers (WUR and Wageningen Young Academy) an innovation grant to develop a mixed classroom course for starting academics (PhD to UD level) and internal and external policy makers on ‘The Future of the University’.
In the next 18 months, we will have time to develop and run a first round of such a course and explore all practical elements ofdesigning and embedding such  a course.
If you are interested to play a part in this course (e.g. because you want to talk about this topic from your disciplinary perspective, know of interesting work forms, or have any other ideas), or if you know someone who would be perfect for setting up such a course, please reach out. And remember this for your future supervision meetings with PhD candidates when talking about their training program ;-).
UYA common voice
The decentralized nature of our university results in each faculty operating with distinct communication practices, in ways that are often difficult to map and streamline. This poses a practical impediment to the growth of UYA’s visibility and impact across the university and beyond. With this project, led by UYA member Catalina Goanta, the main goal is to map existing (fragmented) communication paths at each faculty and at UU central level, and to develop a unified, actionable strategy to improve internal and external communication, enabling greater visibility, collaboration, and impact.
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Lustrum
This year, the Utrecht Young Academy turns 10 and we will celebrate this milestone with on October 30th with all members and alumni!
Together, we will look back on ten inspiring years of UYA and look ahead to what the future may bring. We are looking forward to celebrating UYA and everyone who has helped shape it along the way. |
New members, new board and new chair system
This year, we welcomed 8 new members to UYA:
- Dr. Lourens Bloem, faculty of Science
- Dr. Marlies Maes, faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
- Dr. Michelle Teunissen, faculty of Veterinary Medicine
- Dr. Dora Sampaio, faculty of Geosciences
- Dr. Ralph Temmink, faculty of Geosciences
- Dr. Erik de Lange, faculty of Humanities
- Dr. Dide van Eck, faculty of Law, Economics and Governance
- Dr. Annelies Pieterman-Bos, faculty of Medicine
We also installed a new board, consisting of:
- Verena Seibel (Chair)
- Andrik Becht (Vice-Chair)
- Pavel Sinitcyn (Finance Committee)
- Catalina Goanta (Communications Committee)
- Javanshir Fouladvand (Governance Committee)
- Angelos Krypotos (Interdisciplinary Research)
- Marij Swinkels (Interdisciplinary Teaching)
- Marlies Maes (Social Committee)
Last but not least, we installed a rotating chair system. From March 2026 onwards, the chair and vice chair will work together as a team and will rotate. After one year of service, the vice chair will become chair and UYA members select a new vice chair, who will serve for 1 year before becoming chair. With this rotating system we want to strengthen the consistency within the board, but also the team effort that is needed to lead UYA.
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Buddy system and Advisory Board
Based on feedback we received from UYA members, we installed the following two systems, which aim to improve the onboarding as well as the consistency of the UYA governance: A Buddy System and an Advisory Board.
UYA Buddies
From this year onwards, each new member will receive an UYA Buddy who supports the new member with questions about UYA, its structure, committees, etc. We want to thank every Buddy for taking the time to engage with the new members.
New Advisory board May 2026-May 2029
We are also happy to announce our new advisory board, which is appointed for 3 years. The goal of the advisory board is to advise the UYA board when needed, but also to create institutional knowledge that will increase the consistency within the UYA governance. In addition, the members of the advisory board serve as important linkages to institutions that UYA is often collaborating with, such as the Jonge Academie.
The current Advisory Board members are: Peter Bijl (p.k.bijl@uu.nl); Faculty of Geosciences Martijn Huysmans (m.huysmans@uu.nl); Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance Anouk Keizer (a.keizer@uu.nl); Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences |
Meeting with the rector
On October 16th, the board will meet with the rector, Wilco Hazeleger. We will talk about the mission of UYA, our latest projects and about topics, where we believe UYA should be considered as a conversation partner and sounding board. There is another meeting in the planning for Spring 2027, where we again have the chance to get into a conversation with the rector. |
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| General Assembly September |
| Slow Academia with Prof. Albert Meijer |
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| General Assembly November |
| Teaching UYAself: why the heck is everyone so busy? Research speed dating and discovering common themes |
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Business GA: Goodbye to leaving members; welcome new members; vote on vice chair; installation of new chair
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| Financial Literacy with the UU |
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| The Future of the University |
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| Topic still to be determined |
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Do you know anyone who would like to receive the UYA external newsletter? |
Please send them the link above and follow us on LinkedIn for more updates! |
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