Erwin Muller appointed Vice-Rector of Organisational Development
Leiden University’s Executive Board has appointed Erwin Muller as Vice Rector of Organisational Development. In this role, he will help further professionalise and improve the university’s organisation as per the Strategic Plan.
Room for innovation
‘Professionalising and improving the university organisation is essential to ensure we are prepared to meet today’s challenges and developments’, says President of the Executive Board Annetje Ottow. ‘As the Executive Board, we want to do all we can to achieve the ambitions of our strategic plan. An important condition for this is to create the organisational space needed to make workloads manageable, for example by making our systems and decision-making and other processes smarter.’
She continues, ‘Looking to the future, how can we strengthen our structure? How can we collectively make more astute choices? How can work together as one organisation? Not only our interdisciplinary collaboration ambitions but also the increased scarcity of resources make this essential. The Vice-Rector of Organisational Development will play an important role in this. The deans and Board of Governors recognise the importance of this new role.’
At the request of the University Council, the Executive Board will explain the process surrounding this appointment in more detail at the Council’s meeting on 22 April.
Every confidence
Ottow says the following about Muller’s appointment, ‘We are pleased that the deans support this temporary new role. The Vice-Rector will advise our Executive Board and increase our administrative bandwidth. And we are pleased that one of the deans is willing to take on this new role of Vice-Rector of Organisational Development. Erwin Muller is a very experienced connector and administrator with a wide network within and outside the university. We have every confidence in him and look forward to working together.’ A shortened recruitment process was followed to fill this position.
Actually achieve organisational improvements
Erwin Muller (1965), Professor of Safety, Security and Law, has worked at the university since 1988. He will assume this temporary position for a period of four years from 1 May 2024 and will report to the Executive Board. Muller will resign from his duties as Dean of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA) as of 1 May 2024 but will continue as Chair of Campus The Hague. Muller has the following to say about his appointment: ‘I look forward to working on the continuing development of the university organisation in these changing times with the complex challenges we face. My administrative and academic experience within and especially outside the university will stand me in very good stead. I will, above all, try to actually get things done working in close consultation with stakeholders from inside and outside the university.’
FGGA Board
The current Vice Dean of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Koen Caminada, will take on the role of interim Dean of the Faculty. Maarja Beerkens (Educational Director of the Institute of Public Administration) will temporarily assume the role of Vice Dean of Education on the FGGA Faculty Board. The other members of the Faculty Board will continue to be: Niels Laurens, (Executive Director/Business Operations Portfolio) and Sterre Burmeister (Assessor/Student Affairs Portfolio).
A new dean for the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs will be recruited in an open procedure.