Exploring 'social safety' discourses and practice

In the Netherlands, the policy area ‘social safety’ has gained rapid uptake across universities, presumably in response to for example Naezer, van den Brink and Benschop’s (2019) study of the manifestations of harassment in Dutch academia. Through its publication entitled ‘Social Safety in Dutch Academia – From Paper to Practice’ (2022), the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (the KNAW) has moreover been central in promoting social safety as a comprehensive policy framework that intends to include contextual, cultural and structural factors in understanding the occurrence of so-called ‘undesirable’ or ‘inappropriate behaviours’ as well as their resolution. Such ‘undesirable behaviours’ presumably include bullying, stalking, power abuse, sexual harassment, and discrimination (on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, (dis)ability, class, age, etc.), which begs the question: How does social safety relate to existing policy areas such as ‘Diversity, Equity & Inclusion’ (DEI) and Rewards and Recognition (R&R) and Integrational Safety?

The ambiguity of the concept, coupled with our belief that any emerging policy area deserves scholarly attention, prompted us to initiate this study. In addition to the question of the meaning(s) of social safety, our interviews with practitioners (policy officers, Human Resources, administrative and related staff at Dutch universities who take part in social safety policy work ) will concern the concept’s associated practices and their implications. Last but not least, the project will explore the institutional conditions at Dutch universities and how they shape ongoing social safety policies and practices. This means that we are further interested in how social safety is related to other policy domains such as DEI, Rewards and Recognition, and Well-being, as well as how intersectionality plays a role in the problem definition and implemented change interventions.