{"id":155519,"date":"2023-05-31T13:22:05","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T11:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=155519"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:48","slug":"in-the-scientific-world-we-should-be-encouraging-each-other-more-often","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2023\/05\/31\/in-the-scientific-world-we-should-be-encouraging-each-other-more-often\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018In the scientific world, we should be encouraging each other more often\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

PhD student Gwendolyn Koops-Geuze uses books to stay connected with others \u2013 even if they live on the other side of the ocean. The book Gung Ho: how to motivate people in any organisation<\/em> allowed her to be close to her brother in the Netherlands when she was living in Canada. She eventually moved to the Netherlands for her master\u2019s degree, and now she\u2019s here to stay.<\/p>\n

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Gwendolyn Koops-Geuze's research on youth with a community service sentence led to considerable discussion and probably another outcome of a vote in the Senate. "How cool is that?"<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRonald van den Heerik<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Throughout her life, Gwendolyn Koops-Geuze has moved back and forth between Canada and the Netherlands a few times. Although her parents are both Dutch, she was born in Canada and spent her years as a young adult there, doing her bachelor\u2019s at the University of the Fraser Valley near Vancouver, and her first \u2018real\u2019 job in Canada was working for the police. In other words, her formative years were on the other side of the ocean. \u201cIn Canada, I became a woman, the woman I am today. And, deep down, I feel like a Canadian<\/em>. In my experience, Canadians are more mild-mannered and don\u2019t like butting heads with people, while the Dutch are a bit more down-to-earth and straightforward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Koops-Geuze relocated to the Netherlands to do a master\u2019s degree in Crime and Criminal Justice at Leiden University. \u201cI had family here, the Dutch programmes are very good in terms of quality and, on top of that, they\u2019re cheap\u201d, she says about her reasons for moving. \u201cIn Canada, a master\u2019s degree would cost around \u20ac20,000, whereas in the Netherlands it\u2019s about a tenth of that, about \u20ac2,000.\u201d On top of that, there was a man she was talking to at the time. She has now been in the Netherlands for about five years. That man has since become her husband, and her PhD research has brought her to \u2018the beginning of the end\u2019.<\/p>\n\t

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Reading habits:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Number of books per year: Eight to ten. “I tend to read a lot for work, which means I don’t always feel like reading. Besides, I find it hard to really enjoy fiction, and I particularly struggle with crime fiction<\/em> because I can\u2019t help but analyse what the author got wrong. It just isn\u2019t fun anymore.”<\/p>\n

Primary motivation: “Books expand and broaden your horizons. They force you to look at everyday life in a different way.”<\/p>\n

Last book read: Gang leader for a day<\/em><\/a> (for the second time) by Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh.<\/p>\n

Favourite genre: “High fantasy or allegory”.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

Research with impact <\/h2>

Last year, her research on the effects of community service in the juvenile justice system was widely covered in the media. During the COVID pandemic, the House of Representatives passed a bill stipulating that violence against emergency workers should be punished with a custodial sentence rather than with a community service order. After the House, it was the Senate\u2019s turn to vote on the community service ban. It was widely expected that the Senate would follow suit.<\/p>\n

But a day before the vote, de Volkskrant<\/em><\/a> newspaper published an article on the research showing that young people with community service orders are less likely to commit a new crime than comparable young people with a short prison sentence. A heated debate subsequently flared up on the effectiveness of a ban on community service. A day later, contrary to expectations, 37 members of the Senate voted against the ban, with 35 voting in favour. \u201cIt\u2019s quite possible that the debate persuaded at least one or two people to vote differently. How cool is that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018It was only when a debate flared up in the media about my research that I knew that I\u2019d been on the right track all along: studying community service orders for young people matters\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Stick to the plan<\/h2>

In Canada, Koops-Geuze used to volunteer for an organisation that works with vulnerable young people, and it was there that she saw how complex the situations of vulnerable and delinquent young people are and resolved to work on their behalf. During her master\u2019s in Leiden, she observed that the effectiveness of community service among juveniles sentenced by the juvenile courts had hardly been studied since its introduction, and it was this that led to her PhD research.<\/p>\n

She was determined to explore young people\u2019s own experiences, to give their perspective a voice. \u201cI had written my own research proposal and had been accepted at EUR on that basis \u2013 it was a great opportunity. In the early years of my PhD, this was not always seen as a crucial issue. It was only when a debate flared up in the media about the results of the first part of my research that there was more awareness, and I knew that I\u2019d been on the right track all along: studying community service orders for young people matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Squirrels, beavers and geese<\/h2>

\u201cIn the scientific community, encouraging one another isn\u2019t really commonplace\u201d, Koops-Geuze says cautiously. This is despite the fact that encouraging one another is actually one of the ways to create a successful organisation, according to the book Gung Ho: how to motivate people in any organisation<\/em><\/a>. The author, Ken Blanchard, has three rules of thumb to inspire employees. He uses the spirit of the squirrel<\/em> to describe the importance of meaning and significance in our work. The way of the beaver<\/em> says how that work should be done. Blanchard uses the final principle, The gift of the goose, <\/em>to demonstrate how geese frequently honk to encourage each other \u2013 which is something people should do more of in organisations. \u201cIn the scientific world, we should be encouraging each other more often.\u201d
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She read the book a few years ago, when she travelled to the Netherlands from Canada to visit her brother who had just read Gung Ho<\/em>. They got into a conversation about organisation behavioural science<\/em>, during which her brother tried to convey his enthusiasm to her. \u201cThose visits to the Netherlands were always short, we only had a short time to reconnect. When I got back to Canada, I found the book in my mailbox. Not only was I inspired by reading it, I also became closer to my brother despite the distance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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Read more<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t