What is Recognition & Rewards about?

Many academics feel, there is an overly one-sided emphasis on research performance, frequently leading to the undervaluation of the other key areas such as education, impact, leadership and (for university medical centres) patient care.

As Dutch knowledge institutions, we believe it is important for academics to be able to distinguish themselves in the domains of teaching, impact, leadership and patient care, as well as in research.

In addition, the complex academic and societal challenges of our time call for an assessment system that rewards both (multidisciplinary) collaboration and the unique talent of individual academics.
In addition, academics experience a high workload because they are expected to be active in multiple domains, although they are judged mainly on their research output.

In November 2019, Universities of the Netherlands (UNL), the Netherlands Federation of University Medical Centres (NFU), the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and ZonMw published the position paper Room for Everyone’s Talent. The position paper states we want to recognise and reward the work of academics more broadly by paying more attention to the various core domains in which they work. With the road map Room for Everyone’s Talent in Practice, issued in 2023, the institutions set out in concrete terms what they want to achieve in practice in the coming years.