CBG | Centrum voor familiegeschiedenis’ Post

NWO (Dutch Research Council) shines the spotlight on the societal impact of research proposals "When submitting their research proposal, researchers must reflect on the possible consequences of their research, both desirable and undesired. NWO will also look more critically at its own collaborations with third parties. An assessment framework has been drawn up for this purpose to assess research collaborations. NWO takes these steps to carry out the best research with the greatest contribution to science and society." (Own translation from Dutch) We welcome NWO´s move. Recently, Scientists for Future Netherlands has engaged with NWO about their policy regarding academic collaborations with fossil companies. This led to several publications, first by Guus Dix, Klaas Landsman and Roderik Van De Wal in Trouw: https://lnkd.in/es7w57qM This newspaper replied by getting their philosophical team onto the topic: https://lnkd.in/exF7FG8n https://lnkd.in/emzPz7JM #climatecrisis #researchintegrity #gsp

What does it take to achieve #equality and #equity regarding gender and beyond? Find five crucial #tips in the great interview with the former and the current chairperson of LNVH - Dutch Network of Women Professors (in Dutch) below. 1. Get your numbers right. If not use #womenquota 2. Be aware that #diversity, #inclusion #equality and #equity is broader than #women only. 3. Be aware that women are about half of the population and that they differ considerably. 4. #Change your #organisations, in particular make sure that you include criteria in your promotion system that matter for more diversity and inclusion. #Recognition and #rewards is a good starting point for this: https://lnkd.in/ejCnqwaD 5. Change the way you create knowledge, in particular make sure that people can do their thing. To give an example, in recent years, I have been concentrating on #Inclusive #Research and #Innovation (#IRI) in #STEM, particularly thanks to the support by Aukje Hassoldt and Sabine Roeser at TU Delft | Technology, Policy and Management. #IRI in #STEM is a currently #strategic #priority of Delft University of Technology thanks to the efforts of the #workers and #students council and the #board of the university, i.e. Tim van der Hagen Robert Mudde Marien van der Meer

This week we celebrate ICC Netherlands Integrity Week. It is needed, there is work to be done. The Dutch think we are not a corrupt country. But perhaps corruption just takes a different shape here. We seem to have a blind spot for 'trading in influence' and 'conflicts of interest'. I am sharing a couple examples this week. Last weekend NRC published an article about an epidemiology professor at Maastricht University, who also chairs a platform on #ethics and #integrity in research. They let the students practice with dilemma games and how to deal with external funders, conflicts of interest and transparency. That sounds good. At the same time, this professor is also hired by the consultancy agency of his wife to conduct studies for the chemical industry. He is also a Board Member at the company of his wife, who is also an epidemiologist. Industry associations and large chemical companies use the studies of the professor and his wife to lobby against stricter regulation of harmful substances. The professor has however not reported this Outside Board position/side income to the University. The University has now promised to look into this. The news article also flags a couple questionable practices. The outcome of the research of the professor was sometimes quite convenient for the industry and criticized by his peers. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in The Netherlands. Earlier this year Het Financieele Dagblad reported that large companies finance the chair of some 200 professors in The Netherlands (https://lnkd.in/eujB6kkg). In total some 1178 chairs are paid by almost 700 external parties, some 20% of the total. They are supposed to disclose who finances them, but that doesn't always happen. There is no central register. Now, there are benefits of putting academic research to practical use in companies, and to use practical knowledge when conducting research. However, usually a chair for a part-time professor that is paid by a company, is also fulfilled by somebody who works at the same company. Is that fair? It smells a bit like bribery to me. Shouldn't the best person be nominated? And how do we know whether their academic research isn't biased? A good example are the Dutch tax scientists. Research (https://lnkd.in/e8EFZs5g) revealed that many of the (part-time) professors of taxation express views that are exactly the same as the views of the big tax consultancy firms that employ them and who pay for their chair. These views are usually quite convenient for the big corporate clients of the tax consultants. Moreover, there are hardly any tax professors who are not paid by the industry. On Monday & Tuesday I wrote that 'trading in influence' is not an offense in The Netherlands. It is possible this cannot be prosecuted as bribery. But to me it looks like something is paid in order to get an unfair advantage. To me it smells like #bribery and #corruption. But Dutch business people usually don't see the problem. And that's the problem.

Interesting lecture on cyberbullying! Its available online for anyone that wants to know more about this topic:

A column that should be read with great attention by everybody in our university. Starting from the management at all levels (central and faculties).

✍ First single authored paper, check! In welke mate en hoe communiceren sociale bewegingen over protest op sociale media? En wat verklaart net hun online communicatiestrategie over protest? Ontdek het hier 👇! Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen (FWO) Media, Movements and Politics UAntwerp Faculty of Social Sciences Gepubliceerd in Mobilization: An International Quarterly (https://lnkd.in/e8ngX_xk)

Ik ben zeer gegrepen door Eric Fassin's nieuwe boek, waarin hij de centrale rol van anti-intellectualisme in de huidige autoritaire politiek analyseert, en academici wijst op hun cruciale democratische rol. Uit de inleiding: "The point is to consider intelligence as a political issue. Democratic politics require intelligence from the citizenry— not just from intellectuals or educated citizens, but from the population in general. Not so with anti-democratic politics. Authoritarian rule, whether neofascist or simply “illiberal,” thrives on the stupidity of the populace." "Neofascists work to exacerbate an anti-elitism targeting cultural elites and, along with them, intelligence. On the contrary, democratic politics is premised on a belief in the potential of collective intelligence. What intellectuals, as a social category, should strive for is to make more people desire to work at being more intelligent, and thus, to find bullshit less desirable."

This is awesome news for science! The NEWS is going to try and be the missing link between science and Dutch society. Improving science communication is only one factor, they also want to encourage scientists to actually listen to knowledge from society. If we want a livable, sustainable future, we'll have to do it together! I have full faith in Ionica Smeets and Alex Verkade to make the right moves to heal the rift between the 'common' people and scientists. #sciencecommunication #scienceandsociety #news

Dutch former correspondent in the Middle East Jan Franke tweeted today: 'Nice! More gruesome testimonials of gang rape and other systematic violence against Israeli men, women and children by Hamas during the Oct 7 massacre'. In his thread on X, he condemns Dutch media for not covering this earlier. He writes that Dutch media were 'only making sad stories about those poor Gazans'. Really? I've been thinking a lot about how we as journalists can speak out about what is happening in Gaza. I mean, what are the journalistic ethics and where does journalism begin and activism end? It's not so hard. · What Hamas did on Oct 7 is terrorism; · Israel's response to that is genocide; · There is a context to this war that should be taken into account, namely, Israel has been violating international law for decades concerning the Palestinians. These things can exist next to each other. You don't need to be anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian to know that. Just be pro-human rights. I saw the documentary Mariupol this week. It gave me goosebumps. Director Mstyslav Chernov said that the documentary is ultimately showing the effect of war on human lives. We shouldn't compare wars with each other, he said. And he added: 'We try to make this message more universal, to fight against the selective empathy.' That's a role for journalism too. And we should keep each other sharp on the ethics, especially now. https://lnkd.in/gaY9kM2A

This was an interesting chapter for us to write, for several reasons. One was to unpick in detail the then-government’s highly problematic use of knowledge about risk. In our view they used (and even created) uncertainty about the precise magnitude of risks, in order to legitimate continued exploitation of the Groningen field. This “business as usual” tactic backfired spectacularly and which will cost the NL very dearly in the coming decades. The second reason this was interesting was that the paper was largely written *before* the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into Natural Gas Extraction in Groningen published its report (https://lnkd.in/e6X75zXY). This gave us a chance to test and adjust our analysis. The inquiry results not only shored up our analyses: it passed judgment on the way knowledge was gathered about risks and mitigation and described it as “objectionable”. Our main conclusions are based on the analysis that the “closed knowledge stronghold that is the mining sector” (in the inquiry’s words) became a partnership in which, to paraphrase Slovic, scientific risk assessment was used as an instrument of power. To quote the chapter: “We conclude that the incompleteness of risk assessment contributed to a slow onset creeping disaster. Risk assessment was uncertain and contradictory and therefore a poor foundation for policies. Risk assessment ignored smaller risks and so failed to stem a growing hazard. And by ignoring the hazards of mitigation, a new problem could be created. Risk assessment may have been incomplete because its scope was decided inside the “closed stronghold” of the mining sector itself. And to us at least, it appears that scientific risk assessment was used by the Gasgebouw to define risk and thereby block any dissenting views on it, to circumvent the regulator and influence parliament. Risk assessment was thus used to control revenue and costs and to exert power. This reminds us less of science than of “scientism” as an anti-democratic and “instrumental assessment and control of selectively defined risks” (Wynne, 2015, p.109). Thanks to colleagues, book editors and the conference attendees for the good collaboration!