2.6 No R&R without accountability, leadership and inclusion

  • Mar 2023
  • Claartje Chajes
  • ·
  • Modified Apr 2023
  • 5
  • 60
Claartje Chajes
R&R festival 2023
  • Chris Hartgerink
  • Robbert Hoogstraat
  • Eveline Braber

Lotje Siffels (0.7), Tim Winkel (0.7) and Younes Saramifar (0.7)
0.7

Zeropointseven as an activist group that has voiced the complexities of systematic injustice in Dutch academia, proposes an interactive workshop centred around three themes: leadership, accountability, inclusion. The Recognition and Rewards transformation is very much focused on the ‘ happy few’. In other words those with a permanent contract as an assistant, associate and full professor position. Up till now little or no attention is paid to more vulnerable groups such as early career academics such as PhD students, postdoc researchers and 0.7 lecturers without permanent contracts. Reward and Recognition framework will fall short as long as accountability, leadership and inclusion are not systematically addressed. This workshop will start an open discussion that will start from the experiences of vulnerable groups in academia, and investigate how the Recognition and Rewards programme could be implemented to meet not just the paper reality, but the reality of the unhappy few.

Comments

5 comments, latest: 26 April 2023
  • Hi @claartjechajes, yes I will share something hopefully this week, as requested by Johan. Shall I add it here, or send it in to him to share it on the right location?

    Eveline Braber
  • Nice! Both! Since Johan also forwards your report to the website, it's the best idea to send it to him as well. And as I support contributions from different members, it's nice if you add it here yourself.

    Claartje Chajes
  • R&R Festival workshop 2.6: No R&R without accountability, leadership and inclusion

    This workshop started with indicating different institutional failures within academia, i.e., regarding accessibility and inclusion towards women, disabled people, and people of color.

    Such failures lead to talents leaving the academic world. Universities need to get accountability, leadership ands inclusion better in place, to improve academia and to make it possible for Recognition and Rewards to succeed.

    An important question in this workshop is; How can R&R consider larger social inequalities and safeguard minorities’ labour rights and rewards? It aims to support in closing the gap from wish to practice; How can we bring our desire for inclusion into practice?

    The elements of this are Accountability, Leadership, and Inclusion. In groups, the attendants have discussed practical ideas to practically implement one of these. They have added their ideas onto this digital whiteboard, before discussing them with the group: Tinyurl.com/rewrec

    Some ideas and good practices include:

    Regarding Accountability

    • Being able to bring an extra person to your yearly appraisal conversation
    • Promotion committees should become more diverse, there is a lack of representation of women and other minority groups in these. The institution should be able to find i.e., knowledgeable women to include

    Regarding Inclusion

    • It should become more clear how decisions are taken, i.e., insights in finances per decision might help in this
    • HR becoming more aware that for employees from non-EU countries, their visa is dependent on their employer. Bad timing and management of (temporary) contracts can hurt them, as i.e., this could make them illegal in the Netherlands
    • Do not talk about minorities (i.e. disabled people, people with autism) like they are not in the room, this can hurt them greatly

    Regarding Leadership

    • Reversed mentoring can help giving insights in pains and exclusive practices on the floor. Thes are good insights for leadership
    • More diverse role models are necessary; i.e., a disabled full professor
    • Leaders should crunch the numbers (statistics) on diversity more
    • Accountability and leadership should be tackled by the whole organisation. A participant:
      ‘We work in a complex environment. I wish we had more bosses with good leadership skills. There is a huge gap in common understanding. It is not a person to blame, it is entire culture, in every university. It is part of academic life. We need to move to accountability, inclusion and leadership together. Not just blaming people.'

    An impression:

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    Eveline Braber

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