Statement by the Executive Board regarding permanent and long-term contracts for lecturers
In our new Strategic Plan, we indicate how we will give shape to good employment practice in the years ahead. Topics such as ‘social safety’, the staff workload and personal development are important in this respect. One aspect of good employment practice is providing permanent contracts for structural work, long-term contracts for temporary employment and greater clarity about development options and career paths.
Clear agreements will be made specifically about the contracts of our teaching staff (Job Classification System (UFO) profile Teacher 1-4), about whom there have been concerns for some time about the use of temporary contracts. This will be on the basis of teaching quality, good employment practice and sensible operational management. We will pay explicit attention here to the link between teaching and research.
The University Council and Executive Board have agreed that teaching staff will be offered permanent contracts for structural work. When temporary contracts are offered, for instance in the event of a substitute lecturer/assistant professor (universitair docent), senior lecturer/associate professor (universitair hoofddocent) or professor, this will be for a longer period of something between four and six years. More attention will be paid to the personal and professional development of all teaching staff, in accordance with Appendix M of the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities (CAO NU). A range of options will be developed in the first half of 2022.
To implement these plans, a start has already been made on converting the temporary contracts of a specific group of teaching staff into permanent ones. In the first quarter of 2022, adjustments will also be made to the career policy for academic staff and a further investigation will be carried out into what constitutes structural work and what long-term substitution, and where applicable, other appointments will be brought in line with this. New appointments will be made according to the above principles.