CWTS chooses new leadership - Sarah de Rijcke new director
The Centre for Science and Technology Studies (Leiden University) has adopted a new governance structure. As of January 1, 2019, the centre will be led by Prof. Sarah de Rijcke, who has been appointed by the board of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences (FSW) as the new scientific director for a period of 4 years. Prof. Ludo Waltman has been appointed as deputy director for scientific research and Dr. Ed Noijons has been appointed as deputy director for project and contract research. The current director, Prof. Paul Wouters, retires from his position as CWTS director by the end of December. With this change in leadership, CWTS has adopted the common management structure in the FSW, according to which scientific directors are chosen from the team of full professors in an institute.
Paul Wouters said he is "very happy" with the decision taken by the FSW. "Together with the other members of the staff at CWTS, this is a very strong team with extraordinary skills in research, teaching and people management. CWTS has been an excellent research centre from the very beginning, some 30 years ago. In recent years, we have complemented our portfolio with more social science and computational approaches. Sarah, Ludo and Ed have played a critical role in this diversification, together with our other colleagues. So, the change in leadership is an expression of this development and it will strengthen the further blossoming of the centre in the near future."
Sarah de Rijcke said that the CWTS board is “very grateful” to Paul Wouters for his inspiring guidance and leadership over the past 8 years. She looks forward to working together with the entire CWTS team and the FSW in her new role. “Our appointment starts at a very interesting time, where science and innovation systems are changing rapidly to meet global challenges. These changes often go together with quite heated debates about the value and reliability of science and scholarship, or about the role of universities in and for society. CWTS will continue to contribute to these discussions by analyzing the relationship between key concepts such as quality and impact, by studying how knowledge creation and research governance interact, and by understanding the role of scientific knowledge in innovation. We are also uniquely positioned to develop advanced information tools for research policy and management.”
CV Sarah de Rijcke
Sarah de Rijcke is professor of Science and Evaluation Studies at CWTS. Sarah leads the Science and Evaluation Studies research group. The group studies interactions between research governance and practices of knowledge production. De Rijcke received her PhD in 2010 (cum laude) from the University of Groningen. She held a number of visiting professorships. Most recently, she was the Anna Boyksen Fellow at the TUM Institute for Advanced Study & the Munich Centre for Technology in Society. In November 2017, De Rijcke received a Special Recognition Award from the World Cultural Council for combining excellent research with public engagement. This Fall, she will be appointed as TUM Ambassador for the year 2018-2019. From January 2019 onwards, De Rijcke will lead the project 'FluidKnowledge - How evaluation shapes ocean science,' funded through an ERC Starting Grant.
CV Ludo Waltman
Ludo Waltman is professor of Quantitative Science Studies at CWTS. Ludo leads the Quantitative Science Studies (QSS) research group. This group does research in the fields of bibliometrics and scientometrics, with a special emphasis on applications in research management and science policy. Together with his colleague Nees Jan van Eck, Ludo has developed two software tools for the analysis and visualization of bibliometric networks: VOSviewer and CitNetExplorer. Ludo is coordinator of the CWTS Leiden Ranking, a bibliometric ranking of major universities worldwide. In addition, Ludo serves as Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Informetrics.
CV Ed Noijons
In 1999 Ed received his PhD (cum laude) in Quantitative Studies of Science on bibliometric mapping as a science policy and research management tool. In the same year he became a research fellow at CWTS. He has published and co-authored many papers in peer-reviewed international journals, has delivered key-note lectures in international conferences and has been program chair in several scientometric conferences. For over ten years, Ed has developed and managed all science mapping projects carried out by CWTS. Presently, as a member of the Project Board, he coordinates CWTS BV projects. Since 2001 Ed is a member of the CWTS management team. Ed’s main research interests involve structures, mapping of science and their use in science policy and research management, field delineation, and multi-dimensional, in particular societal impact of science.
For interviews with the new CWTS directors, please contact Petra van der Weel, tel. 071 - 5276179, email p.c.van.der.weel@cwts.leidenuniv.nl.