Brian Tjemkes has been at VU Amsterdam since 2007 (starting as an Assistant Professor and now as a Full Professor), and according to him, the route he took to get to where he is today was not the traditional one. “I have always focused on different things – alongside research, I have also been involved in educational development and, since 2018, in-house executive education,” Tjemkes explains. These “side steps” are a textbook example of an academic career path within the Recognition and Rewards framework, where different aspects are emphasised throughout one’s career. In that sense, Tjemkes was ahead of his time.
Leadership
The three pillars that every academic at VU Amsterdam engages with are research, education, and impact. A fourth competency that is becoming increasingly important is leadership. Consider themes such as social safety, diversity and inclusion, and motivation: “How do you create the conditions in which others can develop, excel, and enjoy their work?” Tjemkes summarises. But before we can define good leadership, we must first explore strategy.
Deliberate and emergent strategies
“Deliberate (or planned) elements include the R&R strategy of VU Amsterdam – the policies, implementation plans, and so on. If you apply this to the five key aspects of R&R, it relates to academic career paths. This involves questions such as: Who are you, and where do you want to develop? How do we translate that into a career path, and what is needed to achieve it?” A common pitfall when implementing such policies is that they become a box-ticking exercise.
The counterpart to this is emergent strategies – elements that cannot be planned. These involve unexpected or new situations. “People, regulations, policies, the world – they are all subject to change. This can be challenging but also creates opportunities. A good leader not only focuses on planned tasks and policies but also dares to respond effectively to unforeseen situations. To me, that is also what R&R is about,” says Tjemkes. “The risk, however, is that if everything is allowed to flourish, it can come at the expense of the core tasks of an academic.”
Attention and recognition
With this understanding, we can take a closer look at good leadership. “R&R is not just about career paths, rules, and policies; the other side of the coin is just as important. R&R is also about seeing and being seen. Much of what you need to know in academia consists of unwritten (social) rules. Helping someone navigate this world is also the responsibility of a leader.” In summary, R&R is deeply about attention and connection. “And it is the leader’s role to balance the deliberate and emergent R&R strategies,” Tjemkes adds.
The core aspects of team science, which emphasise a shift from an individual to a team focus, and open science, which promotes a new way of collaborating based on openness and transparency, strongly reflect this interplay between formal policy and informal interactions.
Returning to deliberate and emergent strategies, Tjemkes concludes: “Especially in these turbulent times, when people feel uncertainty about education and science in the Netherlands, it is crucial that we all – and especially our leaders – can respond quickly and effectively to unforeseen circumstances. A good leader knows how to bring together the best aspects of both deliberate and emergent strategies.”
