Utrecht Young Academy: how can we be more caring within academia?

The following text appeared in our internal Utrecht Young Academy newsletter. At @stefanievrancken's request, we are happy to share it here too, as it is a topic that also touches on E&W.

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