Dean of Research Wouter Hendriks at the Dies Natalis on 7 March. Photo Guy Ackermans He would have liked to continue in his role and finish off the job he had started, but after two periods in office he has reached his maximum term. A new person will become responsible for the PhD programme at WUR and chair the Wageningen Graduate Schools meetings.
When Hendriks, an Animal Nutrition professor, started in 2019, there was little in the way of structure. ‘In fact, that was a reason for Richard Visser, my predecessor, to advise me against taking the position. There was no backup and no secretary who knew the ropes. The staff and budgets were spread across multiple departments.’ That has now changed, in part thanks to the recommendations made by Visser. Hendriks has a secretary and a staff team, who work in the Doctoral Service Centre in Atlas.
What did you envision changing six years ago?
‘My goal was and is to improve the quality and efficiency of the research. In my view, this starts with our PhD programmes. Lecturers are constantly assessed on their teaching qualities, but this doesn’t happen for PhD supervision. When I started, the old PhD registration system was on its last legs and urgently needed to be replaced. The new registration system Hora Finita is now starting to produce data.’
Such as?
‘The number of PhD candidates per supervisor, for example. I showed such a list to the directors of the graduate schools and science groups two years ago. Beforehand, I asked them what they deemed acceptable for good supervision. Around ten PhD candidates, they thought. They were dumbfounded by the findings. The top supervisor had 49. Four of the top five were from the same graduate school. Mind you, I’m not saying whether this is good or bad, but that information is now available at any rate.’
Are there PhD evaluations now, like the course evaluations for lecturers?
‘No, but that’s in the pipeline. In the near future, Hora Finita will be able to supply data about the number of PhD graduations, how long the PhD takes, the quality of the thesis in the sense of the final assessment by the doctorate committee, and the number of research chapters. Soon, the P&D interviews for PhD candidates should hopefully go through Hora Finita. I would also like to implement an exit questionnaire, similar to the teacher assessments for Master’s courses. Not to judge PhD supervisors but to safeguard the quality of the supervision.’
The number of PhDs has increased from 300 to almost 400 per year in your time. Won’t that growth get in the way of quality?
‘I don’t think so. The number of supervisors with supervision rights has grown too, and there are now more personal professors due to the tenure track. The time to graduation (the average duration of the PhD from start to defence) is unchanged.’
The number of cum laude PhDs has doubled to 7 per cent (21 theses) in the past year. That’s more than the national 5 per cent. Does that indicate a better quality?
‘No. Maybe we’re so good that there should be many more. Or maybe fewer. The criteria you set ultimately determine how many you get. I think the number has increased because the supervisors better understand the procedure, which we adjusted slightly. So they are playing the game better. I will present the figures in my last meeting with the Academic Board, with the question of whether or not this trend is desirable.’
Work to do
Hendriks recently saw the first EngD – engineering doctorate – graduate. He is proud of that milestone for WUR. WUR was the only technical university that did not yet have this abridged doctoral programme. ‘I pushed for it together with Claudius van de Vijver (head of the PhD programme at Graduate School PE&RC), Pieter Munster (policy officer at the Corporate Strategy & Accounts) and others. I’m proud of being able to then witness that first defence. Just as I’m proud of the work we did during the pandemic. We had the first fully online PhD defence in the Netherlands.’
While those are the success stories, there are some areas where less progress was made. The job vacancy text said that the Dean of Research has a role coordinating research by the university and that by the institutes. According to Hendriks, this still needs work in practice. ‘The organization is not yet managing that alignment. There’s still a lot of potential there.’
But surely people are cooperating within the science groups?
‘The director of a science group is in charge of both the WU and WR sides. The director has a lot of decision-making power in the institutes, but much less control over the chair groups and the education. The professors are responsible for their own budgets. Decisions about research are often made in splendid isolation. That costs WUR money. Because of the cuts, I’m working on a proposal to use PhD candidates and EngD candidates — where possible — for WR projects. This would result in a smaller permanent workforce at WR, with a flexible shell of PhD and EngD candidates. Plus they would get a bonus at the end of these programmes. Ten PhD candidates per year should be possible.’
Does the Dean of Research have no influence on the research at WUR?
‘Influence yes, but not control.’ And with that, Hendriks arrives at what he calls an administrative shortcoming. According to him, professors at WUR are not involved enough in strategic research decisions.‘The graduate schools, which consist of the professors and their staff, don’t have an official direct line to the Executive Board and the rector. These schools cover the entire university, but they don’t have a seat at the table during the senior executive meetings in the ABCDE group.’
What is the ABCDE group?
‘They are the Executive Board, the science-group and business operations directors, corporate staff and the Deans of Research and Education. About 24 people in total, of which only three are professors: the two deans and the rector. The other 21 have less direct knowledge of research or education. There’s an imbalance there. The science group directors are formally also representing the chair groups, but do they know enough about them? I’ve said it a number of times: we should include the graduate schools. They have experience with the day-to-day education and research. There are a lot of layers in the Wageningen organization. We should consider whether this setup is future-proof, especially now we are facing budget cuts.’
And now back to full-time research?
‘Yes. I’m 59 and there are a few things I would still like to do.’
Such as?
‘I want to go back to my first love: research on cats. Specifically, studying felinine. That’s the amino acid in cat urine responsible for that typical cat odour. I want to isolate the enzyme that makes this substance and the genes involved in it. The end goal is to look at whether sabre-toothed tigers also excreted this substance. These animals became extinct 30,000 years ago, but there is still genetic material from teeth and bones. Did they also use these territorial markers? I would like to know.’
