In the past 10~ish years there has been a national push towards two themes aimed to improve things at our (academic) research institutes: Open Science and Recognition & Rewards. The first addresses the needs to allow (more) people to do research, while the second addresses the conditions under which we do research. The two Maastricht University pages about how my university looks at these topics are;

The provide a good number of additional pointers for important context.

Recognition & Rewards generally is a very complex question. Just thinking about how people reply to the Cornell University rape allegations. Not every researchers is evaluated in the same way.

And then there is the highly complex approach how to compare researchers when the question of promotion comes up: qualification or quantification. They both measure certain aspects of our performance, but not all metrics (qualitative or quantitative) actually measure the performance of the researcher. The journal impact factor is a clear example of that. The H-index is more personal but also does not really measure what you want to use it for. These things too return with Open science monitoring. We have to monitor such efforts critically (like we do with everything, the researchers we are).

The dynamics are fascinating. But they are also essential to my work. I am line manager of multiple researchers, each with their own career paths. Under to modern HR, any Maastricht University researcher can opt to use career compass option. This career policy gives our employees more freedom how to be evaluated. For example, it gives more room for recognition for teaching and for patient care. But all routes have four obligatory topics:

  • Academic citizenship
  • Personal and professional leadership
  • Team performance
  • Impact & Open Science

In the evaluation meetings with your development board you will discuss how you did on the activities related to your personal career compass. And then again the qualifications and quantification come up. And that opens the can of worms.

Now, because open science and team science are used a lot in the Theme Bioinformatics of our Department of Translational Genomics, I like to know what options I have to recognize and reward that.

That is why I signed up for the Recognising and Rewarding Open Science programme that started last week.