Did you accidentally delete the invitation? Then keep a close eye on your mailbox on Monday morning. You will receive the invitation with your own code again in your mailbox. The subject line is: 'REMINDER: Collega, deel je ideeën over onze profilering! | Colleague, share your ideas with us! Still no invitation on Monday? Please send an e-mail to profilering@bb.leidenuniv.nl.

We are very concerned about the cutbacks announced in the outline agreement. Many employees seem to wonder what the desire for a strong university positioning has to do with the cutbacks. In short: nothing, and, at the same time, everything.

To us, university positioning is not a choice about what research we do and what educational programmes we provide. Focusing our profile on particular themes does not mean that we will pay less attention to other themes or even depart from them altogether. Any possible cuts will, thus, not be based on the outcome of this process.

Where it does touch on the government's desire to cut back on higher education, is that it shows the importance of setting ourselves apart more distinctly from the others with a unified and strong university positioning. This allows us to proactively create new opportunities for additional or new funding streams. A strong university positioning also provides us with tools to illustrate the usefulness and necessity of science for our society, with which we can, together, offer an even stronger counterweight to current developments. This is why it is important that as many colleagues as possible can contribute ideas on what we can best showcase to the outside world.

This consultation was commissioned by:

• Hester Bijl, Rector Magnificus
• Annetje Ottow, President of the Executive Board
• Martijn Ridderbos, Vice-chairman of the Executive Board
• Erwin Muller, Vice rector Organisational development
• Jan Kolen, dean Faculty of Archaeology
• Mark Rutgers, dean Faculty of Humanities
• Henk-Jan Guchelaar, dean Faculty of Medicine/LUMC (interim)
• Koen Caminada, dean Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs
• Suzan Stoter, dean Faculty of Leiden Law School
• Sarah de Rijcke, dean Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Jasper Knoester, dean Faculty of Science

The societal and political context within which we operate has changed in recent years: (comprehensive) universities are under increasing pressure, and politicians in the Netherlands are looking more critically at scientific research and education. A clear and strong profile will help us to differentiate our identity more precisely in relation to other parties. We will then be able to proactively create more opportunities for additional or new funding flows. A strong profile will give us tools to demonstrate the usefulness and necessity of science for society.   

Presenting a clear profile will also help us respond proactively to opportunities and to develop in a more focused way. A number of faculties are already doing this by including specific themes in their faculty plans.  

Developing a clear profile is not only intended for the outside world. Within our university, too, it will help us formulate together an answer to the question of ‘What are we about?’ Organisations that have a clearer image of their profile are more incisive.

Defining a clear profile is  about foregrounding specific themes that you believe are important it helps you differentiate yourself from other knowledge institutions. You might, for example, want to attract collaboration partners or extra funding on the basis of these themes. Look at it as a big department store: the five knowledge domains under consideration in this consultation are the different floors, and all the themes with which we are engaged as a university are in the building. You put some of these themes in the shop window, as a way of drawing people to you.  What do you think Leiden University should put in the shop window? You can make your suggestions known in this consultation. 

There are 19 possible themes on which we can base the profile of our university. These are spread over four knowledge domains:

• Languages, Cultures and Heritage
• The Changing World
• Peace, Law and Security
• Society and Technology.

Our fifth knowledge domain is Health, and a choice has already been made within this domain, so no further selection needs to be made here. We will be very happy to hear your feedback on these themes.

Representatives of our academic staff, heads of research, faculty administrators, communication staff and policy officers have mapped out the many different themes that are we are engaged with at Leiden University. This has resulted in the five cross-faculty knowledge domains.

Representatives of scientific disciplines and administrators at the faculties were then asked to put forward a number of possible themes for our university profile. The criteria here were that the themes should be interdisciplinary and interfaculty, they should be embedded in both education and research, they should have a distinct development direction (both in terms of their subject matter and their societal impact), they should respond to opportunities in the outside world and finally they should advance education and research.  

Because of the need and opportunities we see in a more joint profiling within this knowledge domain by Leiden University and LUMC, Health & Life Sciences was developed last year in the form of a pilot.

The pilot for Health & Life Sciences was seen as an example of how university positioning within a knowledge domain can be set up, which has led to a request from the Executive Board, with support from the Deans, for the development of other knowledge domains and candidate positioning themes that are now presented to the community in the form of this consultation.

The chosen themes for Health & Life Sciences align with faculty themes, social and economic agendas, offer grant opportunities and benefit from existing embedded links in local, regional and national ecosystems, including the Leiden Bio Science Park.

Focusing our profile on particular themes does not mean that we will pay less attention to other themes or even depart from them altogether. It does mean that we will focus on our university strengths and target our communication more purposefully; we will offer dedicated support with advice on subsidies and these themes will be part of our valorisation and public affairs strategy.

Themes that are not selected as focus areas for Leiden University will still continue to be highly valued. Profiling brings more commitment from shared resources and manpower, but it is not all-important. These are themes where we want to act together as a university, but a faculty, institute or programme can always choose its own themes on which it wants to base its profile.

Your choices and answers in this consultation are anonymous. That means that your choices and answers will not be linked to other data such as your name or email address. If you would like to know more about this, at the bottom of the page in the consultation website there is a link: ‘Privacy statement’. You can read more there about Populytics and how Populytics collects and secures your data.

The report will present the preferences of participants from different backgrounds. We will ask each participant about a number of relevant background details, such as their position and specialist field. This will allow us to compare outcomes and make clear what is important to staff from different backgrounds – such as, for example, different and differently sized disciplines. 

As a participant you can indicate your preferences for where to focus across all the knowledge domains,  including potential focus themes that affect your own discipline very little or even not at all, but that are characteristic for Leiden University. One outcome of the consultation may be that participants mainly choose themes that match their own discipline. But it may also turn out that participants share a degree of unanimity about particular themes, irrespective of their own discipline. This is something the consultation will show up.

The method that will be used is the participative value evaluation. You can read more about this on the website of Populytics, the supplier of the consultation tool.  

Ultimately, the Deans and the Executive Board will decide on a set of profile themes for Leiden University. This consultation is an important source on which they can base their decision-making. The results will not only make clear the preferences of people within our academic community, but will also provide a rich source of motivations behind these choices. 

The consultation is not a vote that will be adopted one-to-one in the decision-making. It does, however, give a highly valuable and relevant image of the way Leiden University employees look at profiling per se and at themes specifically. As our employees are an important group of stakeholders, the decision was taken to distribute this participative value evaluation broadly. Separate discussions have also been held with such stakeholders as students, science editors, participation bodies and external stakeholders. The recommendations of these groups are expected to be presented to the Executive Board and Deans at the end of October. They will reach a decision that will be presented to the University Council in January. Their advice will be announced in mid-February. We expect at the end of February to be able to share with the university community the themes we will be focusing on more specifically in the coming years.

We are going to use our university’s substantive profile themes in a number of different ways:

• We will develop a more targeted communication strategy to raise awareness of these themes, and will connect with societal issues and involve the general public;
• We will put these themes on the agenda of regional and international networks, indicating where our interests lie and the areas where we want to work more closely together, including with partners outside the university; 
• We will provide targeted support for grant applications within these themes; for example, we will take a more central role in consortia and target these themes in new programmes;
• Profile themes that deal with increasing the impact of teaching and research will be prioritised for funding within the university. We will also, for example, prioritise the allocation of interdisciplinary funds;
• We will make targeted efforts to raise additional funds for this research and education, for example among alumni and donors.

We will maintain this profile for at least five years. The aim is to synchronise with the Strategic Plan periods of the university as a whole and of the faculties.  As these plan periods differ from one other, we will work with bridging phases that include profiling.

Nevertheless, it is important to remain agile, and adjust our profiling when there is a significant reason to do so. Our profiling may evolve over time based on changing circumstances, trends and new opportunities.