YALumni

Learn more about the former members of the Young Academy Leiden who contributed to a better position for young academics. In the academic year 2023-2024, Young Academy Leiden said goodbye to eleven of its members, who became YALumni. In the five years they were member of YAL, they all experienced and learned new things in their academic careers. Below they share a number of experiences they have gained in recent years that relate to Young Academy Leiden.

Annemarie Samuels

The Young Academy Leiden has made a huge difference in my life as a Leiden University early-career scholar for two main reasons. The first is the absolutely wonderful people I have had the pleasure to meet in YAL.

For the full five years, I have enjoyed working with my YAL-colleagues on a large number of projects, getting to know their disciplines, and sharing the ups and downs of academic life. There was always energy and enthusiasm to discuss, organize, engage, and collaborate – even during lockdowns, or perhaps especially so. And from the start, we all agreed to work hard to counter the image of an elitist group of ‘excellence’, and rather tried to engage the entire early-career scholarly community as much as possible. Secondly, through YAL I have gained a lot of insight into university, and broader academic, policies, as well as the challenges and joys of interdisciplinary work. My two years as YAL board member, first with Helen Pluut and then with Sarah Giest, and throughout with Cathelijn Waaijer, where most certainly one of the best parts of my YAL-membership.

As I have been telling people on several occasions: I still consider this the nicest ‘bestuurstaak’ one can get at Leiden University. I have enjoyed may of the projects organized in the workgroups, such as the interdisciplinarity symposium, the interdisciplinary seasons’ activities and writing the policy papers. I will highlight here specifically the faculty and interfaculty lunches that we organized to discuss topics such as work pressure, social safety outreach and recognition and rewards, but also to foster a broader network of early-career scholars at Leiden University.

Helen Pluut

YAL has given an enormous boost to my academic career. It has been a place for me all these years where I could learn from my peers, thanks to the passionate discussions we had about themes that play a role in science. YAL was also an opportunity for me to do something completely different than I was used to in my daily work, with colleagues from other faculties and other disciplines. No matter how busy I was, I wanted and would make time for YAL. Because I believed in what we were doing, it was fun work and, above all, with great people. 
 
During my years as (vice)chairman I gained valuable leadership experience. I was challenged in the good sense of the word. I looked up to my fellow YAL members and at the same time I felt safe and valued in the group. Not surprisingly, I've made friends here.
 
Being a member of YAL has proven to be the best way for me to get to know the university and understand how things are going in an administrative sense. My network at the university has grown considerably in those years, especially thanks to committee work (for example, the Recognition and Valuation steering group).  
 
I am convinced that Leiden University needs a club like  YAL: a group of young scientists who strive for a better university and combine a service attitude with a critical attitude. In recent years I have seen YAL grow: in number of members, but also in visibility and maturity. In my opinion, what makes YAL mature is the combination of idealism and a sense of reality. Being a member makes you grow as a scientist and as a person, and I wish that for everyone who is part of the Leiden early-career community.

Joris Larik

Being part of the first cohort of Young Academy Leiden was a great privilege and pleasure. I remember that at the inaugural event, we were advertised as “bursting with youthful zeal”. That may be, but even more importantly, I experienced the YAL community as “bursting with kindness”. Therein lies for me also the true added value of YAL for our university: showing that amid all the stress and pressures of being a young academic, there is plenty of kindness, friendship, and support – and that YAL can be an important catalyst for such positive influences.

YAL certainly organized a host of events during its first five years, including the Next444 Roundtable as part of the celebration of Leiden University’s 444th anniversary (pictured). However, I would consider the most formative ones for me the frequent, animated discussions we used to have in the Science and Education Policy Group, which I co-chaired in the early years. For me, this was a true crash course into the inner workings and dynamics of the Dutch higher education sector. I greatly benefitted from the insights of my fellow YAL members, as we drafted the first series of policy briefs to nudge the direction of our university.

A perhaps underappreciated benefit of YAL is that you really get to know your own university in all its breadth. When else would I have visited all the different faculties for our various meetings, and met such wonderful people from disciplines often quite remote from my own?

Hence, for all these reasons, I wholeheartedly encourage the next generations of early career academics to join YAL and take an active part in its activities.

Maaike van Putten

Being a YAL member from the very beginning has allowed me to really shape the YAL to its current form with a great group of bright and engaged colleagues. Building YAL from scratch was a really valuable experience for me personally. The discussions we had about our potential focus areas were valuable to me and I learned a lot from it. I am proud about the close relationship we build with the board of directors and the seats we got at the table of multiple commissions, such as Academia in Motion. Combinedly this really helped us to raise the voice of, in particular, early career researchers.

YAL really brings people from the different faculties of the Leiden University and the LUMC together. Being able to directly work with colleagues from a wide variety of disciplines has opened my eyes about the diversity of study topics and people which the University hosts. Through our meetings and events such as the Seasons of Interdisciplinarity and the Faculty lunches interaction with others has become very easy.

I really appreciated to participate in the event that was organized at the Liberation Day Festival in Den Haag to celebrate the 444 birthday of the Leiden University. A group of scientists presented some interesting highlights of their research for the general public during a series of silent talks which were alternating with a silent disco. Also the public was very enthusiastic about this event which they did not anticipate to find at this festival.

Joining the YAL was a great experience for me, and I would not hesitate to get on board and become active as it is worth the time investment. The broad range of topics that YAL tackles makes it an interesting learning experience for any earlier career scientist.

Young academics should have a voice in committees that make decisions that affect their future. Furthermore, I value the interaction between scientists from different disciplines within the university, and find this essential for the future of interdisciplinary work which is really needed in the future.

Noel de Miranda

Joining YAL has introduced me to a remarkable group of people and made me aware of the significant disparities and heterogeneity across various academic disciplines and fields. This experience has been essential for understanding the challenges related to academic careers beyond my own field and has provided me with a clearer overview of Leiden University’s organization and the Dutch academic system.

This growth has allowed me to fulfill roles of academic citizenship elsewhere with much more experience and awareness of our academic system than I would have had otherwise. The most valuable aspect of my experience has been meeting and conversing with other YAL members. Being aware of their idiosyncrasies and experiences has been extraordinary. Additionally, I was honored to represent YAL during the European Science Open Forum activities in light of Leiden European City of Science 2022.

I strongly encourage others to join YAL. If we recognize issues within the academic system and our universities and envision solutions, it is also our responsibility to act upon them. Participating in YAL activities is an excellent way to achieve this. Another important issue to me is building bridges between academics, universities, and the rest of society. YAL brings together individuals who understand the importance of opening universities to society and dismantling any remaining ivory towers.

Sarah Giest

The Young Academy Leiden will remain a highlight in my academic life in Leiden, because it created a life-long network of colleagues (and friends) beyond my own institute or faculty and gave me insights into other disciplines and parts of the university that I would have not experienced otherwise. The colleagues that were part of YAL were all eager to dedicate their (limited) time to talks, events, trainings and meetings that would connect and benefit the early-career community at Leiden and were always willing to help out or answer questions.  As a former chair of the group, I learned important lessons on how to lead a group of peers and raise issues of the early-career community in relevant meetings and with the university leadership. YAL also enabled me to have a seat at tables where strategic decisions and visions were discussed, teaching me about the complexity of steering such a large organization while making sure everyone is heard. YAL can hopefully pose as an example in the academic world of scholars from different parts of the university coming together to empower the early-career community in different ways and paying attention to the different dimensions that concern all colleagues around policy, interdisciplinary and outreach. 

Tom Louwerse

YAL helped me to build a network in our academic community beyond my own Institute and Faculty. As the first cohort of YAL members, we had to find out what we would like to do as Young Academy Leiden and thinking about this together helped me develop my academic leadership skills. But the main benefit has been to meet inspiring colleagues working in very different fields who face similar (and sometimes) different challenges which has been very enriching.

It has been invaluable to meet countless early career colleagues at Leiden University at our Young Academic Lunches. Even during corona times, which started when YAL was just in its second year, colleagues met online and discussed the challenges of young academics. With our corona survey and these meetings we helped to highlight these challenges to the university leadership. This was fulfilling, because YAL was not just a community of young academics, but also for young academics.

Young academics have to do very many things: develop a research agenda, teach (sometimes a lot), write grant proposals, and contribute to the academic community of your Institute. This leaves little time to look beyond the borders of your Institute, let alone the Faculty. YAL did provide this space and time as well as a group of people who are enthusiastic about doing this. These connections and friendships continue to remain important for me.

I have experienced my membership of YAL as a gift for learning and developing, that we (I hope) have returned by organizing activities and speaking up for the benefit of the whole early career scholar community. If you get the chance to do this, grab it with both hands.

Young Academy Leiden has from the start tried to be a place from young academics for young academics. It is very rewarding to be a part of this, but by organizing a myriad of activities for all (early career) scholars and speaking up from the perspective of young academics I hope we have managed to give back.