Universitair Belang

Universitair Belang represents the interests of all employees. Whether you are a PhD candidate, professor or receptionist, your interests are guaranteed to be represented. We stand for trust, open communication, transparent decision-making and less bureaucracy. Our goal? Less rigid rules and a more human touch. We would like to see more room for fundamental research and more appreciation for education. Moreover, we feel strongly  that everyone should belong. After all, we are there for all employees and we aim for a university that appreciates  diversity of opinion and talent.

What are Universitair Belang's focal points?

Trust is always at the forefront for Universitair Belang. We believe that in running the university and carrying out our work, we should rely more on the knowledge and experience of our scientists and professionals. All staff should have the means to carry out their work with as few rules as possible. In our opinion, this forms the basis for high-quality teaching, research and management. 


To promote this, we focus on the following points:

• Professional and efficient support for teaching and research is in everyone's interest. However, harmonisation and standardisation must not come at the expense of scientists' and teachers' freedom in teaching and research. We oppose  further bureaucratisation of the university: rigid rules resulting from digitalisation, harmonisation and centralisation. The human touch and the professional opinion of lecturers and researchers must prevail in considerations concerning teaching, research or student guidance. 
• We envisage the university as an Academic Sanctuary, where a diversity of opinions is welcomed in an open scientific and research-based debate on technologically and socially important topics. The university should remain an academy rather than a hierarchical and tightly managed company.

• We aim to reduce workload by minimising work that does not directly contribute to teaching and research. 

• We see a trend towards an increasing focus on interdisciplinary and socially desirable research, We are of the opinion that, in addition,  sufficient room  should remain for conducting fundamental and monodisciplinary research. 
• Internationalisation requires nuance. In one field of science it enhances the quality of research and education, while in another field of science the Dutch context is essential. In both areas, the provision of information must be at a high level in both Dutch and English.
• We expect students to have academic interest and the drive to develop this. Too much rigidity hinders the development of scientific creativity.
• We contribute to building a university that has a univocal identity and communicates clearly with students and employees. Everyone should know what is expected of them. It is then clear to employees where there is room to develop in their jobs  and to respond flexibly to current organisational issues.
• We envisage diverse teams, within which an open debate can always take place. In such a setting, safeguarding each other's wellbeing is important. Only then  team members  can speak up and   work in academic freedom.

What distinguishes Universitair Belang from the other parties?

Universitair Belang is a representative reflection of university staff. Our top four therefore contains a proportionate number of academics and support staff, so that everyone's interests will be represented in the Universiteitsraad. This ensures that discussions, for example on workload, are conducted from a broad perspective. In the other staff parties, only scientists are in eligible positions. 

What did we accomplish in the past two years?

Universitair Belang has worked on the following issues over the past two years:

• Removal of the smart cameras (person counters) in our Faculties during the Corona period. Using smart cameras in incompatible with our core value of managing by trust. We aim to limit control within the university as much as possible, because in our view this   often clashes with  (academic) freedom. We see the university as an Academy and not as a rigidly managed company. In our view, knowledge flourishes in freedom of thought and freedom of action.
• We have supported students in simplifying registration for exams. Students no longer have to reconfirm their participation in exams.
• We put the issue of workload explicitly on the administrative agenda. We demanded that the College van Bestuur provide insight into how workload will be relieved in the coming years. A workload relief fund was established by the CvB as a first step;
• Diversity and inclusiveness are important for a healthy organisation, but we are not in accordance with requesting more and more special personal data from our staff and students such as ethnicity, orientation, social class, etc. In the discussions with the CvB on diversity and inclusion, we therefore opposed the proposal to start requesting this data from staff and students.
• Climate is important to us, but we oppose abrupt conclusions based on emotions, such as immediately severing all ties with the fossil industry. We think we need to pool our knowledge  and expertise, if we want to find   intelligent and sustainable solutions. The fossil industry and its products currently form the basis of modern society and our prosperity. The transition to alternative products, from medicine to the plastic in our laptops and clothes, requires major investments in order to restructure society and to develop affordable alternatives. In our discussions with the CvB on severing ties with the fossil industry, we therefore added nuance to the discussion.

Contact

Questions and comments are always welcome from Sigrid Zuijderduin and Floske Spieksma.