Is it important for VU researchers to share their work broadly, and why?
Yes, I believe all VU researchers should do this to some extent. However, I think this can be done in different ways by different researchers. I also believe that not everyone needs to do this to the same extent.
How do you do this yourself with your own research?
Personally, I choose to focus on building relationships with (commercial) organizations. This focus fits with my research on hierarchy and leadership, but also with the training I have received and the work experience I have. In my research area, it can also help fund research. In my view, these types of opportunities are still insufficiently sought. Also because funding can contribute to impact: after all people appreciate things more when they pay for them.
Who are you as a researcher?
I am curious by nature and interested in different things. My career reflects this. It started with a degree in mechanical engineering after which I worked as a business consultant and obtained a degree in management (MBA) and then, finally, completed a PhD in social psychology. Quite broad for a scientist.
This broad interest is also reflected in my research. I am fascinated by hierarchical relationships between people and the consequences of these relationships for people in organizations. This has been a central theme in everything I have done over the past few years. But I have also retained a certain level of interest in technology, and enjoy using it in research. In addition, management practice continues to fascinate me. Of course, the latter is inherent to my research area (organizational psychology), but I think that even within my field I tend to actively seek out questions that add value to practice and that I clearly choose to take the perspective of managers.
Why do you think it's important to do more than just write academic papers?
There are several reasons why this is important for me. First, it ensures that I keep asking questions in my research that are useful. It also helps to ensure that the outcomes of my research end up in places where they add value. In my case, this is with managers in organizations. Finally, it’s increasingly important to be able to fund your own research. Some impact activities can contribute to this.
Who inspired you?
There are too many to mention. Within my own department alone, there are several professors who are both very successful as scientists and (in very different ways) have a clear positive impact on society. To me that’s very inspiring.
In what way does this suit you?
As I already mentioned, I have a broad interest, so it is nice to see from these examples that there is room for this. I also like to be challenged. It stimulates me to have people around me who set the bar high. In that respect, the place I’m in suits me well.
How can you further integrate valorization into academic culture?
In my view, it is important for impact activities/valorization to structurally be part of the expectations we have of academics at different levels, for example by including ambitious goals in this area in yard sticks /profiles and making them a clear part of annual consultations. Personally, I would like to see criteria for assessing the quality of impact activities. I am thinking not only of the economic value of those activities or their appreciation by society, but also of their scientific basis. And of course, if you set ambitious goals, you also have to create the preconditions to achieve them. This means you need to give scientists time to work on impact activities.
What would you still like to achieve in terms of impact?
I am the business director of the Amsterdam Leadership Lab. A lot of great things are happening there. For example, several members have developed tools that are (or can be) used in practice, for example to help companies determine their leadership needs, but also to test someone's personality even better as part of a job application procedure. Some members regularly provide workshops and lectures to practitioners and there are also several collaborations with companies in the field of (applied) research. But there is definitely room for growth as well.
I would like to raise the profile of our lab and initiate more collaborations with companies. I also think there is a lot of room to collaborate more within VU Amsterdam, for example with researchers elsewhere in the organization doing research on leadership or on topics or with research methods that are complementary to what we do. I am convinced that such collaborations can help everyone do even more interesting research and that they would make us a more interesting partner for companies. In the coming period, I want to actively explore the possibilities for such collaborations.
How could you help colleagues who also want to make an impact, or who are at the beginning of a similar journey?
I think that the boundaries of the Amsterdam Leadership Lab offers a lot of room to collaborate with colleagues in other places within VU Amsterdam. I am open to exploring possibilities that people see and answer any questions that people may have about this.
What impact activities are under development in your department?
In the organizational psychology section, we organize a meeting at least once a year in which we think about and work on our impact together. In previous meetings we found that people in our section would like to engage in more science communication and to collaborate more often with companies, but that younger colleagues in particular do not always know how to get started. At the same time, there is a wealth of knowledge and experience among other colleagues and a lot of willingness to help others. In the meetings, we bring this together and try to identify common interests and goals.
In my section, we also decided to include impact as a fixed item on the agenda in section meetings. This way, everyone is regularly reminded of the fact that impact is a "normal" part of our activities and we make sure that people continue to think actively about their own possibilities and our section's potential in this area. I believe a lot can be achieved with such simple means.
Finally, we have also included descriptions of both our research activities and our impact activities in the form of case studies on the Amsterdam Leadership Lab website. This makes our activities visible, both externally and internally.
How do you think VU researchers should publicize their work?
Impact activities can be very diverse and I don't think there is a single best way to valorize research. It strongly depends on your research area and the type of impact you are trying to achieve. For me, it’s important that scientific knowledge clearly underpins those activities and their impact. Of course, as an individual you can also have "impact" in other ways that are very valuable, for example by helping others or by sharing a personal opinion that prompts others to behave differently/positively, without this stemming directly from scientific knowledge. This may seem obvious. However, it’s easy to lose sight of this distinction, and, personally, I find it very important to remain critical of myself in this regard.
What do you personally want to achieve through your role in the IB-FGB?
In my role, I am both a representative of my department (EAP) in the IB-FGB and a representative of the IB-FGB in my department. In the first capacity, I consider it my responsibility to find out how the IB-FGB might be of help to members of my department and to ensure that their needs are taken into account in decisions and initiatives. In the second capacity, I feel my role is to share information with members of my department and also to support impact related initiatives where possible.
How would you like to contribute to developments around impact/valorization?
Personally, I think impact activities can provide opportunities for more collaboration between the different sections in our department. In terms of research, we ask different questions, but in order to have impact, we might actually benefit from our diverse expertise. I would love to contribute to bringing about these types of collaborations.