Jaap Cornelese about being a member of the University Council

Jaap Cornelese is a policy advisor at EDIS and a staff member in the University Council (UC). How did he become part of the UC and what does he want to achieve?

Why did you choose to put yourself up as a candidate for the University Council?

"As a manager at EUR between 2015 and 2022 I gained insight into the inner workings of the University in a lot of different policy areas. I always felt the urge to try to influence these policies beyond my formal responsibilities as a manager. As a person I have never been any good at restricting myself to a given ‘circle of influence’. I was restricted by two factors though: preventing possible conflicts with duties and responsibilities resulting from my position as manager and a lack of time due to my workload. Since the start of 2022 though, I hold a new position as policy advisor and decided that I could and would now finally make the time to join the work of the participatory bodies of the EUR. I was fortunate to be elected in the Service Council of the PRO-services first and after that, as a representative of these same PRO-services, in the University Council."

What did you want to change when you started as a council member?

"In particular I wanted to gain attention for a lot of well-meant policies decided upon, but hardly acted upon by the EUR. Formally the EUR’s policy is for example to promote ‘horizontal’ career changes by managers. This first of all to offer employees a more interesting career-path within the University, but secondly to improve the exchange of knowledge and experience between services and faculties. I personally experienced the possible benefits of such an exchange between services, having been lent-out by IT for 1,5 year to Marketing & Communications and after that returning to EDIS. Insight into the inner workings of both services allowed me to severely speed-up projects and contracts that had stagnated due to misunderstandings and lack of communication between both services. In practice hardly any managers switch between departments, services and faculties though."

How has your experience been so far?

"Interesting and a good fit with my nature to be a total busybody when it comes to policy making in general. EUR is continuously in the process of making new policies ranging from the way funding is being divided across faculties and services to improving the accessibility of the campus. With all these policies the question has to be raised if in practice it will turn-out to be just a well-intended policy with no practical impact or a policy that will really have an effect. Raising that question as a member of the participatory bodies of the EUR keeps me engaged."