RYA themes and projects
RYA teams are working on specific themes and projects. Members of the teams meet regularly to discuss their ideas and plans. The teams develop projects, write articles, organize events and meet with policy makers and other people from the Radboud University and Radboudumc. In this way the RYA aims to positively contribute to the academic culture.
Recognition and Rewards
- The RYA Recognition and Rewards team developed the RYA Recognises and Rewards prize. All employees can nominate a colleage or colleages who positively contribute to the academic culture. Once per year, during the RYA Recognition and Rewards event, a lotery decides six winners who will receive a gift card of €500.
- Together with Radboud Reflects, and on behalf of RYA, the Recognition and Rewards team presents the Out of the Box podcast. In this podcast series researchers who left academica and returned to it tell about their experiences within university and somewhere else.
Episode 1: Floris Heukelom - Economist turned care farm owner
Episode 2: Kinga Matula - Physical chemist turned startup CEO
Episode 3: Vincent Blok - Health care manager turned philosopher


Work-life balance
- The work-life balance team presented the ABC of Care: a series of 26 postcards (one for each letter of the alphabet) with messages about self-care. This project was lauchned at the end of 2022 and during 2023 the postcards will be distrubuted across all faculties and buildings.
- Humans of Radboud is a series of interviews with students and employees from Radboud University, about an healthy work-life balance and self-care, that is developed by the work-life balance team.
Open Science
- On behalf of the RYA and in collaboration with the Open Science team, Eelke Spaak wrote an article about ideas towards more Open Science. Voxweb published this article.
- Together with the University Library, the Open Science team is arranging that all RYA members could make their publications open access available, on basis of the Taverne Amendment
- The Open Science team is intensively involved in the development of the Open Science program of the Radboud University.
Internationalisation
The main goals of the RYA internationalisation team are:
- Attract more international talent and strengthen international collaborations.
- Harmonize titles with international customs to increase transparency and avoid underselling.
- Make feel internationals more at home on campus.
The team has discussions about these topics with board members, policy makers and other employees from the Radboud University and Radboudumc.
Social safety
Team members of the social safety team aim to contribute to more social safety via discussions with the Executive Board of the University, confidential advisors and other employees. Read more about their ideas in this article published on Voxweb.
Diversity
The diversity team is committed to promote and improve diversity and inclusion across the university. Members of this team have discussions with DEI officers and other employees from different faculties about their ideas.
Climate action
The climate action group initiated the Green Academy. This group of members from young academies across the Netherlands and some other experts in the field, aims to contribute to more sustainability within the Dutch academia. In May 2023 they will come together at the Radboud Unviersity for an in-depth workshop about this topic.
RYA supported initiatives that were initiated by Scientists4future (a group of worried climate scientists):
- In 2021 they asked the boards of all Dutch universities to convince ABP to stop divesting in fossil fuels.
- Early 2023 they asked all Dutch universities and universities of applied science to bank sustainable.
Valorization flags
This team develops a valorization tool that could help PhD candidates and young postdocs. The tool brings a lot of ideas, tips, does and don'ts about valorization and will be launched in 2023.
Ius promovendi
The ius promovendi team aims to reach that associate professors at the Radboud University receive the ius promovendi as a standard.
Course evaluations
The course evaluations team discusses how current practices of course and teacher evaluations could be improved.