krant

News from the iBMG Management TeamGeert GerritseThe MT held a meeting on 12 June.The research group leaders will meeton 21 June, after the closing datefor submissions to the BMG Paper,but just before its publishing date.EducationAs from 1 September 2012, Wynandvan der Ven will be the new chairof the Examination Board, takingover from Hans Severens. This shiftresults from the fact that the MT hasasked Hans to create a new researchmaster ‘in no time’. Furthermore,the Teaching and ExaminationRegulations were discussed. Fromnow on these will be set for eachcohort. True, it is no light reading,but on the other hand theseregulations are highly important toguarantee quality of our education.They still need to be considered inthe official decision-making process(including approval from the BMGCouncil); announcement of entryinto force follows after this processhas been concluded.A nice piece of work is the wellthought-out plan to make ourteachers even more professional.Facilitating teachers to reach higherlevels of professionalisation is key togood education. The MT thereforeendorses this plan. Implementationand assurance of the plan will befurther organised.For the rest, the MT saw fit toaccept the OCT’s recommendationthat the use of long articles shouldbe strongly discouraged and evenreduced to zero. This practice costsBMG tens of thousands of eurosevery year. It is worth consideringto what extent articles are freelyavailable (via the University Library).If this is not the case, we shouldarrange with the library that thebooks containing the articles aremade available, or request studentsto purchase them.ResearchThe HCG group has looked at theissue of authorship qualification:when does a researcher meet thequalifications for authorship of amanuscript, and when not? We areconsidering making these principlesmore widely available.Furthermore, we discusseda memorandum on uniformcommercial tariffs within iBMG. Thememorandum was drawn up at therequest of various groups. Theseare the tariffs to be charged whenwe are competing with commercialconsultancy firms; higher than theones we are allowed to invoice toNWO, ZonMw and EU. As soon asagreement has been reached we willinform all staff.Staff policyWe discussed a preliminary analysisof the staff satisfaction surveybased on input from various groupsand FACB/OSC. Apart from groupspecificimprovement actions (ifnecessary), we aim to prepare aniBMG-wide action plan. This willbe further discussed in the groupleaders meeting. Among the criticalelements emerging from the analysisare workload, career perspective,and leadership. Explanations willbe sought for the differences inperception between groups.Financial situationOur financial situation deservesongoing attention. The figures sofar however indicate a more positiveposition than last year, which ofcourse is badly needed in view ofthe more than 1 million budgetdeficit last year. Nevertheless westill need to considerably add to theorder book, which in ‘the good olddays’ was relatively easy – but inpresent times much more difficult.