Executive Board interview: ‘Trust is a key measure’
A new Executive Board has been leading Leiden University since mid-January. What are their impressions and their plans? An introduction in two parts. This is part two.
President of the Executive Board Luc Sels, formerly Rector of KU Leuven, and a Belgian national, is new to both Leiden and the Netherlands. Rector Sarah de Rijcke knows the university well, but in different roles: she has worked in Leiden for over 15 years, as a researcher, Scientific Director of the CWTS and Dean of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences.
Timo Kos was a board member of Saxion University of Applied Sciences and director of Education and Student Affairs at Delft University of Technology, and for the past year has been Vice-President of the Executive Board in Leiden. The three of them have now been working together as the new Executive Board for almost five months.
Luc, Sarah and Timo have met many members of staff, students and different parts of the university over the past few months. They believe it is important to be visible, approachable and to engage in regular dialogue with the university community.
What have you learned in the first months from staff and students that has altered or deepened your view of the university?
Luc: ‘As I said earlier, my impression of Leiden as a strong university is constantly being confirmed. But we are too modest, and we could convey that strength a lot better.’
The students are what makes Sarah happy. ‘What I love about being Rector is the contact with students. Take the assessors, for example: what an incredibly committed group they are. I have regular meetings with them, and they prepare topics in great detail before we discuss them together. We cover topics such as their recommendations on the role of AI in our teaching, but also how to improve the way progression to our master’s programmes is organised.
‘What also strikes me is just how diverse Leiden is in practice. I visit a lot of faculties and get to see the full richness of all those different disciplines, as well as the different working practices. It’s also inspiring to see the many ways they engage with society. It is an incredibly rich and varied landscape. That’s what makes this work so rewarding.’
Timo: ‘For me, it’s the passion and pride colleagues feel to be working for this wonderful university. That also applies to just about all the colleagues in the support services that I have met over the past year. They work day in, day out to deliver the highest possible level of quality, and to do that as efficiently as they can, so that as many resources as possible are channelled into our research and teaching. That commitment from staff is crucial to getting things done in our at times complex organisation.’
What do you hope to have achieved in four years, and what changes will our staff and students notice?
Luc: ‘If I could have just one wish, it’s that people would have more trust in their university. Trust between colleagues, in their managers and in the people in charge. That trust is less tangible than a new building or a new programme, but for me it is a key measure. If students and staff feel they are being heard, and if decisions are taken firmly and with care, that creates trust and a sense of stability.
‘I would also be very happy if the discussion were less about constraints and more about opportunities. Recent years in the Netherlands have been marked by uncertainty, budget cuts and constraints. But a university can only really flourish when it is able to think ambitiously.
‘To do that, we will have to play an active role outside the university itself: in The Hague, in Brussels, in the public debate. We have to keep on explaining why strong universities are vitally important for society, why sufficient and stable funding is essential and why we must have the freedom to set our own course.
‘I would also like the complementarity between our campuses in Leiden and The Hague to become even more apparent and self-evident. And I hope that by then we will be even more firmly rooted in the ecosystems around us, from the Leiden Bio Science Park to our partners in Leiden and The Hague.
‘And finally, I hope that by then we believe more firmly in the power of our full academic breadth. The big issues of our time call for strong individual disciplines, but also for collaboration between disciplines. We can then be more aware of how archaeology, humanities, social and behavioural sciences, law, medicine and natural sciences strengthen one another. It is that very combination that makes a university like Leiden so unique.’
Sarah: ‘If staff and students say in four years that they know what this university stands for, that they see themselves reflected in the choices being made, and that they know that the part they play matters, then we really have achieved something important.
‘In terms of our profile as a university, I hope that a number of the themes will have developed into active interdisciplinary communities where people from different faculties bring out the best in one another, work on the same issues and are able to find valuable partners outside the university. It would be great if, at that time, it were quite normal for someone in Leiden to say: “I work in geopolitics and security law” or “I work in regenerative medicine and inequality” and that people immediately recognise it as something distinctly Leiden.
‘I would like Academia in Motion to be embedded throughout the university, and also to be implemented, and that PhD candidates who excel in teaching, lecturers who invest time in collaboration and team science, and researchers who make data and code publicly available can say that all these contributions are valued equally.
‘We have a clear guiding principle and an increasing array of “good practices”. The LUMC, for example, has an inspiring new PhD thesis framework, and all faculties are reviewing their career framework. The challenge now is to put this into practice everywhere.’
Timo: ‘I would like to be sure that the quality of our comprehensive research and teaching continues to be of the highest level and that their societal value is recognised. In the domains of education and research, I want us to move from being a follower to becoming a front-runner in areas such as Digital Autonomy and AI. A great deal is already happening, although much of this work remains largely invisible within the organisation. We have to do something about that.
‘I would like to be able to say in four years that our staff and students are able to work fully with a reliable, secure and state-of-the-art digital infrastructure and that we have a recognisable voice in Europe in the debate on digital sovereignty and public values. That directly affects our academic freedom and institutional independence.’
Finally, what aspect of our university gives you the greatest confidence for the future?
Luc: ‘I haven’t been here very long, but the willingness of so many colleagues to take responsibility for the bigger picture has really impressed me. I see that, for example, in the collaboration among our deans. What has also impressed me is the shared understanding that the success of one faculty is ultimately linked to the success of the university as a whole.
‘There are heated discussions, as there should be at a university, but there is also an enormous willingness to share responsibility. If that same collaborative spirit is translated to the faculty boards, institutes, programmes and research groups, then many more shoulders will be helping to carry this university forward. That is ultimately what inspires the most confidence in me: the power of a community that is prepared to move forward together.’
Sarah: ‘The people. Our university has staff and students who are extremely committed to their work, who often do more than is strictly asked of them and who are prepared to take responsibility for education, research and engagement with society. The ambition that is always there gives me a lot of confidence. That combination of intellectual curiosity and commitment is enormously powerful. But we do need to make sure that we don’t ask too much of people. It’s also important to prioritise and focus.’
Timo: ‘Absolutely the people. The contact with individual members of staff is excellent. It is very rewarding to work together with them, and that gives me a lot of confidence in the future. I see people here who are prepared to look beyond the boundaries of their own department or faculty. Once that collaboration is embedded more firmly across the organisation – and we’re working hard to achieve that – it will unlock a huge amount of energy.’