The Executive Board of Radboud University has commissioned the Partnerships Advisory Committee to assess the University's partnerships, with a special focus on international partner institutions in conflict zones. The committee has been tasked with evaluating whether some of the University's partnerships should be terminated because they are (or will be) fundamentally in conflict with the University's mission and core values. An assessment framework for evaluating partnerships has recently been developed, and will be further elaborated.
Assessment in three areas
The assessment focuses on three areas:
- Does collaboration with the partner institution compromise the quality or integrity of the education and research of Radboud University and Radboud university medical center?
- Is the partner institution's behaviour towards their own staff and/or students fundamentally at odds with Radboud University's core values?
- And finally, is Radboud University demonstrably contributing to serious human rights violations by collaborating with this partner?
In considering these three issues, the committee makes maximum use of external and authoritative sources that meet with broad agreement, and applicable policies, such as the Dutch and European Codes of Conduct for Academic Integrity. The advisory committee may seek expert advice from within and outside the university as they deem necessary.
Based on these frameworks, the committee will first consider Radboud University's partnerships at institution level (an entire university or university of applied sciences). They will then assess partnerships at institute level and externally funded partnerships at faculty level. In principle, the assessment does not cover cooperation between individual academics. That consideration falls to the staff members themselves, who can use the same assessment framework, supplemented where necessary by expertise from the University.
Participation process
Participation meetings are also organised with students, researchers and support staff from the various organisational units of Radboud University and with diverse perspectives on the issues. The goal of the participation process is to work together to map the existing dilemmas, using concrete examples as a basis to jointly test and enrich the assessment framework. This helps the advisory committee to make good quality assessments by means of a framework that can effectively be used in practice.
