Congratulations, Dr. Sarah Coombs!
PHD DEFENCE
On 21 February 2025, Sarah Coombs successfully defended her PhD thesis at Leiden University in which she analysed the impact of research conducted by Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS).
Sarah was supervised by Paul Wouters and Ingeborg Meijer. In her dissertation, she investigated the requirements for evaluating the impact of research by Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS), which are more practical-based with a focus on applied research in comparison to (research) universities: 'My dissertation explored how these requirements can be implemented in real-life within the current policy landscape by addressing the two questions: (1) What are the requirements for evaluating the research impact created by Dutch UAS research? And (2) How can these requirements be applied within the context of the goals of Dutch UASs?'
Answering these questions has resulted in two distinct yet interlinked segments of her thesis as Sarah moved from theory to practice: 'Firstly, I sought to define the rules governing the evaluation of UAS research impact. Secondly, I analysed the current practices within the contextual playing field in which Dutch UASs find themselves and experimented with applying the requirements to the impact evaluation process of Dutch UAS research. My results concluded in recommendations for conducting UAS research impact evaluation as well as discussing how our conclusions can be applied by researchers, administrators, and policy-makers in practice.'
In her laudation after the PhD defence, Ingeborg Meijer praised Sarah’s work: 'She has steadily, and with perseverance worked on this thesis developing breadth and depth of knowledge on the impact of practice-based research in UASs and developed into a true expert. While investigating the functioning of the knowledge triangle and diversity in output, she also experimented with contribution mapping to identify the micro-impact of practice-based research. It is an extraordinary achievement to have completed this journey, and to do this next to a job and raising a family.'
Sarah has been an external PhD candidate at CWTS since 2018 and participated as a dual PhD candidate in the programme of Leiden University Dual PhD Centre. In addition to doing her PhD, she works full-time as a content coordinator for the Digital Competency Centre for Practice Oriented Research (DCC-PO). She also works as the Open Science Advisor for Saxion and the Netherlands Association for Universities of Applied Sciences. As an extension of her work, she has the privilege of representing Dutch UAS’s in many boards and committees including the Open Science NL steering board.
At CWTS, we are very proud of Sarah’s achievement and look forward to staying connected with her and the amazing work she is doing at Dutch UASs.
