Carolien van Ham was tired of the constant competition in research and joined a department where things are organised differently. Collaboration and team performance, and hiring people with different skills and a collaboration mindset is now what she aims for. At her department at the Radboud University Nijmegen a research prize was awarded to a team instead of individuals.‘Potentially we could generate way more ideas, and science could go way faster if we would be a little bit less competitive and a little bit more collaborative.’

Carolien van Ham is Professor of Empirical Political Science at the Radboud University Nijmegen.

In this short series, Marie-José van Tol and Sanli Faez, members of The Young Academy, discuss some outstanding solutions for common issues experienced at Dutch universities with various guests. In these interviews faculty members from four universities present how a serious and common problem has been solved in their department or institute in a creative way.