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Recognition & Rewards: embracing diverse talent

'The idea that every scholar must excel in all core domains is no longer tenable – or necessary' - Jeroen Geurts, Rector Magnificus VU Amsterdam

A new perspective on academic careers
At VU Amsterdam, we value diverse talents and look beyond numbers and publications. Your unique contribution to education, research, and society is what truly matters. The Recognition & Rewards program gives academic staff (starting from Assistant Professor level) the flexibility to shape their careers based on their strengths –whether their passion lies in teaching, research, or societal impact. At the same time, aligning these choices with the strategic goals of your team and faculty is essential, ensuring that your development contributes to the collective success of your department and the university as a whole.

Shaping your focus
From 2025 onwards, you will have the opportunity to bring more focus to your academic career. Whether your passion is in excellent teaching, groundbreaking research, or translating knowledge into societal impact, you will determine your focus in conversation with your supervisor during your annual consultation. This does not mean choosing one domain at the expense of another – education and research remain at the heart of every academic career. Instead, it is about emphasizing the areas that best align with your talents and your team’s strategic ambitions. To support you in making informed decisions, we provide various tools, including reflection instruments and career development guides. This new approach is part of a nationwide movement among universities, academic hospitals, and research institutes working together to develop innovative career models.

Recognition and Rewards at VU Amsterdam

Recognition & Rewards in 2025

Assistant professors, associate professors, and full professors will, from 2025 onwards, set agreements in their annual review about focusing on one of the three core domains. But what does this mean in practice? How do academics and leaders experience this approach? In this video, VU colleagues share their insights and experiences, showing how a focused approach contributes to their professional growth and strengthens diverse teams.

This is how we are already implementing Recognition and Rewards

  • Career paths at VU Amsterdam

    At VU Amsterdam, scientists from Assistant Professor level onwards make career agreements on a focus on one of the core domains.

    View the general framework academic career paths: finalised career paths (pdf)

    See the Academic Career Paths webpage for information and tools on how to conduct the interviews.

    We have started with designing a career path for lecturers as well. Information will follow in January 2025

  • Open science

    At VU Amsterdam we expect our employees to work according to the principles of open science, by making their scientific outputs (e.g., publications, data, software, educational materials) and the processes that led to them findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR), and fostering collaborations within academia as well as with societal partners. There is more attention for involving societal stakeholders in the research process (citizen science, transdisciplinary research, public-private partnerships) and for engaging in a dialogue with society via science communication. We move away from focusing solely on the quantity of research outputs, and give more emphasis to the quality of the scientific and social contribution of our work.

  • Art of Engagement

    VU Amsterdam implements the priority area of Leadership in Recognition and Rewards through The Art of Engagement: how can you integrate personal leadership in your work as part of the organisation as a whole? We make the organisation a better and more focused place if we all contribute actively – through commitment to the greater whole – to the way we interact with one another. The place where cooperation matters most is the team. We are all members of a team, even though it might seem we are not. By applying the principles of The Art of Engagement more actively in teams and by improving the collective teamwork, we make the organisational culture better and we value each other’s contribution more explicitly.

  • Incubator for junior lecturers

    In the incubator for junior lecturers junior lecturers and D4 exchange experiences, get inspiration and develop as teaching experts. Come along on a Thursday or to one of the many events organised by the Incubator. You can find the Incubator in the NU building, in 6A69. 

  • Active in national programme and European coalition

    Recognition and Rewards is high on the agenda not only at VU Amsterdam, but also at all the Dutch knowledge institutions and research funding agencies. Read the national e-magazine (nov 2023) with best practices, interviews and blogs in which academics from inside and outside VU give their personal views on this topic. 

    You can read more about recognition and rewards in the Position Paper ‘Room for everyone’s talent’, the website of Universities of the Netherlands and the web page of the National programme Recognition and Reward.

    At a European level VU Amsterdam is affiliated with the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment, which examines subjects related to Recognition and Rewards.

  • How VU Amsterdam academics apply Recognition and Rewards

    Recognition and Rewards is already in the DNA of many VU Amsterdam academics. For instance, Yvette Taminiau won the Van der Duijn Schouten Teaching Award for the way in which her teaching focuses on exchanges with external partners and alumni networks. And there’s Jelle Tichelaar, who set up a programme oriented to leadership and team building in an educational environment. And Joris Amin, who as a PhD candidate researched the integration of refugees and how their job prospects can be improved. 

VU academics on recognition and rewards

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