Equal opportunities for an academic future: how ESSB breaks down barriers for students

Why focus on student assistants?

ESSB is committed to equal opportunities and an inclusive academic community at all levels. With the support of Maria Schiller, ESSB’s Diversity & Inclusion Officer, we work on making our recruitment and selection procedures more inclusive and aim to diversify positions at higher levels.

Maria Schiller explains:
“To achieve this, we need to start early in building the talent pipeline, reaching people who might otherwise never consider pursuing an academic career.”

The role of student assistant is a first step towards an academic career. At the same time, we see that some groups of students are less likely to respond to vacancies for student assistant positions and therefore miss out on opportunities to gain experience in research, teaching and project work. This is the case, for example, for students whose parents did not attend university (first-generation students), or students who have less obvious networks within the academic world, including many students with a migration background.

The Breaking Barriers Student Assistant Programme helps bridge this gap by encouraging research teams to tap into this talent and showing students that the academic world can also be a logical next step for them.

Born from a student’s idea  

Breaking Barriers began from student assistant Alex Huang’s lived experience. Moving to the Netherlands as a queer migrant and first-generation student, Alex joined the ESSB D&I Office to make ends meet and drive change. Seeing how few people with similar backgrounds entered academia, he proposed a programme to lower those barriers – which became Breaking Barriers. Now Alex studies queer migration and intersectional inclusion, collaborating with NGOs and cultural institutions such as Workplace Pride and Fenix. His journey embodies what Breaking Barriers aims to make possible.  

The programme in practice

In the past year, a total of six student assistants started through Breaking Barriers. Their tasks varied: from general research work and support for academic projects to data analysis and analysing curricula and course guides from a D&I perspective. Some roles were directly linked to diversity and inclusion; others were more generally research- or project-oriented. In all cases, the tasks aligned with the student’s discipline and ambitions.

Evaluations show that the programme does exactly what it sets out to do: students no longer experience an academic career as something abstract and out of reach, but as a realistic option.

Experience of a Psychology student: growing in a new environment

For one of the participants, Wiam Ghazi, a Psychology student, the role felt daunting at first. 

“No one in my family had attended university, so the idea of becoming a student assistant and taking on responsibility within a research team felt quite intimidating at first. Looking back, the growth that I’ve made feels significant to me. It showed me that I can take ownership, handle responsibility, and perform well in an environment that initially felt new and a bit challenging. This is an experience I will carry with me into future roles, reminding me of what I am capable of, even in new and challenging environments.”

The experience was not only educational but also formative for the future. Beforehand, an academic career felt distant and almost theoretical. By contributing to research herself, that world became concrete:

“Before this role, these paths felt somewhat abstract and distant. Through this experience, they became more tangible and realistic. Being involved in the research process and seeing how it works in practice made a future in this field feel genuinely achievable. It also played a big role in piquing my interest!”

To students who are unsure whether this world is really “for them”, Wiam’s message is:

“Opportunities like this are not only about gaining experience, but also about realising that you can belong in academic and research environments, even if they initially feel unfamiliar or out of reach.”

In other words: it is not only about an extra line on your CV, but above all about realising that you are allowed to feel at home in the academic world.

Experience of a Public Administration student: speaking confidently about diversity with academics

Another participant, a Public Administration student, worked on a project on diversity and inclusion and presented the findings to a room full of experienced academics. That is no small task:

“Over the course of the role, I had two presentations in which I presented what we were going to do and then what we had done. I remember being extremely nervous for both of the presentations. As a first-generation university student with a migration background, this whole world was completely new to me, and there was no one at home with similar experiences to talk it through with. It felt very daunting to present in front of over 30 mostly very senior academics about diversity and inclusion.”

Yet something important happened during the second presentation:

“Especially for the second presentation, where I presented our findings from the analysis of the course guides, once I started presenting, I calmed down and became more confident. It felt empowering to see that my perspective and work were taken seriously.”

The combination of substantive engagement, good supervision and a safe, collegial atmosphere made it possible to turn that tension into development. To other students, this Public Administration student says:

“Doubts really should not hold one back from trying to pursue something one is interested in. I would also like to think that the managers and supervisors are eager, empathetic and collaborative individuals, so one should not fear that either. If one can lay out their motivations and skills in a clear manner, they should go for it.”

These words underline a core element of the programme: academic teams are not looking for ‘perfect’ candidates, but for motivated students who want to learn and contribute.