Who we are and what we want to achieve
Radboud University has a broad research tradition with renowned faculties and institutes that conduct high-quality fundamental and applied research and are recognised nationally and internationally. Building on this foundation, we are further expanding our research quality, with a focus on and scope for innovation.
We invest in attracting and retaining top talent, stimulate team science and renew our framework for quality assurance and impact measurement. In addition, we are strengthening five excellent, interfaculty and transdisciplinary research themes and raising our profile in this area both nationally and internationally. At the same time, we are creating space for promising collaborations, our “hot spots”, where new lines of research can emerge and grow.
Our goal: Through international recognition of our research themes, we are increasing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration and funding opportunities. Each theme is firmly anchored in interfaculty collaboration and education, so that researchers, lecturers, staff and students consciously choose a university that combines excellence in fundamental research with the major social issues of our time. The breadth and quality of our high-calibre research remains our solid foundation, with academic freedom always as our starting point.
What is needed to achieve this
Excellence in thematic areas
The five interdisciplinary research themes strengthen the cohesion and focus within our academic breadth, align with our institutional values, and are relevant to both fundamental research and applications in society. They concern the functioning of the brain; value-driven AI and digitisation; the fundamentals of space and matter; sustainable health; and inequality and emancipation. These themes have their own core, but are also interconnected.
Each of the themes offers opportunities for greater collaboration across faculties and research institutes and with external partners, enabling us to increase our scientific and societal impact and strengthen the possibilities for attracting external funding for researchers and the necessary infrastructure. We are realising our ambitions by simplifying interfaculty collaboration, for example with clear guidelines for the organisation of research groups and support for joint funding applications.
We increase our public visibility by encouraging researchers to act as ambassadors in the media, debates and policy networks. Based on the principles of open science, we involve citizens in research and actively share knowledge and results with society. In this way, we ensure that our work not only excels academically, but also has a concrete impact – in the form of policy advice and innovations that contribute to social progress.
Broad interdisciplinary research
Across the entire spectrum of our university, we see opportunities for more interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration. In addition to the five research themes, we therefore encourage bottom-up initiatives in the form of “hot spots”: places where new developments and research areas can emerge, for example around landscape development, energy transition or subject didactics in secondary education. Such initiatives can grow into new profiling themes. The hot spots are regularly put in the spotlight and receive tailored support. Based on experiences with previous interfaculty initiatives, we are developing a clear and flexible process that helps hot spots to grow and realise their potential.