Research

‘Top-quality research is only possible in an open and unrestricted international context’

Academic freedom and applications in society

The research at Radboud University is of a high academic quality and is characterised by integrity and academic freedom. Curiosity is the primary driver for our researchers. This is also true when the emphasis of their research is on its application to society.

Top-quality research

Academic freedom, integrity and curiosity are preconditions for academic research of high quality. Top-quality research is only possible in an open and unrestricted international context, where researchers work within international networks and have access to the infrastructure of international knowledge, funding and publication. We encourage every researcher – from PhD candidate to professor – to gain international experience.

Wide-ranging research: within and across disciplines

We are a broad-based university with a dynamic range of research focuses. Our combination of academic disciplines provides opportunities for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research. On our compact campus, we work closely with the Radboud university medical center and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.

Our research responds to the complex problems of today and tomorrow. We encourage cooperation between disciplines and we challenge our staff to engage in cross-disciplinary research. Our students are involved in research wherever possible, which enriches both teaching and research. Academic research constitutes the future of our teaching, just as our students constitute the future of our research.

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Internationally active

We encourage our researchers to be actively involved and to take the lead role in international research networks and projects. We work in international programmes, European ones in particular, in order to secure resources for our research and to enhance collaboration with top universities, companies and civil society organisations abroad. Grant applications to secure these resources are actively and professionally supported from both Nijmegen and Brussels. When choosing international partners, we opt for quality over quantity.

Unique facilities

Our university invests in unique research facilities of international significance. Examples are the combination of magnets and lasers for materials research at HFML-FELIX and brain scan facilities for research at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, as well as the wealth of research opportunities offered by the Catholic Documentation Centre and the University Library’s special collections. With facilities such as these, we provide an impetus for research collaboration between different disciplines. Companies, organisations and institutions can come to our university and take advantage of our range of rooms, facilities, labs and equipment.

Feeling responsible and taking responsibility

As a university, we feel a responsibility for the world in which we live. We want to be in the vanguard when it comes to achieving the United Nations sustainable development goals and to make our own contribution to the changes needed in the world in the coming decades. Our broad range of academic disciplines and the opportunities for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research at our campus offer excellent possibilities here.

An open research culture: FAIR and with integrity. We support researchers in Open Science.

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Making our findings public

At Radboud University we have complete academic freedom and an open culture. It is axiomatic that our researchers exchange ideas openly with one another. This also means giving and receiving criticism and understanding that academic research is an ongoing process in which we openly share and discuss our findings.

Our research meets the standards of academic integrity. We make clear agreements about staff involvement and the use of knowledge in start-ups, for example. We see academic integrity as the shared responsibility of individual researchers, the research group and the university as a whole. Academic integrity is also part of our students’ training. We apply the national code of conduct for academic integrity in our research as well as our teaching.

Open Science: access to research data

The developments regarding Open Science are complex and bring with them major changes for all researchers. Open Science is not only about open access and publications, but also about the reuse and storage of data. Research funded by public money should make a contribution to society and be publicly accessible wherever possible. We facilitate and support our researchers in this endeavour. Open access and making research data accessible are part and parcel of an open scientific and academic culture. Open access publishing is part of our social responsibility. Our ambition regarding research data management is that data associated with all publications should be stored in a way that is FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable). Findability and accessibility, along with the associated infrastructure and support, will be a major focus of our programme for research data management in the years ahead. We will play a key role in this area, both nationally and internationally.