{"id":94400,"date":"2019-01-25T14:37:37","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T13:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=94400"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:23:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:23:12","slug":"three-strategy-makers-speak-anyone-could-share-their-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2019\/01\/25\/three-strategy-makers-speak-anyone-could-share-their-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"Three strategy makers speak: \u2018Anyone could share their opinion\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past few months, staff members and students from all the various parts of the university worked on draft plans for the new university strategy<\/a>. Never before had the university included this many people in the development of strategy plans. It was a new experience for everyone, including the chairpersons of the seven Strategy Design Labs, each of which focused on a specific subtopic of the Strategy 2020-2024. Three of them share their experiences.<\/p>\n

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\u2018It brought a lot\u2019<\/h2>
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Pursey Heugens<\/strong>, full professor at the Rotterdam School of Management and chair of the lab: \u2018Excellent Scientific Research, Anchored in Society\u2019 (original Dutch name: \u2018Uitstekend wetenschappelijk onderzoek verankerd in de samenleving\u2019)<\/p>

How did you experience the entire process?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe last strategy was written by a single policy officer, so to speak, so this new process is something quite special. It has brought us a lot but was also a lot of work in a short span of two, three months. In the end, it came down to a lot of administrative work, a lot of writing. My overall impression is positive, however: a lot of good people put a lot of time into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did you experience the process with regards to the sports hall meetings, cartoons, manual work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAs a professional strategist, I am well accustomed to those sorts of things. Process management can sometimes feel like an annoying distraction; you mostly want to spend as much time as possible devising plans instead of working on process guidance. In the end, however, it does help with the operationalisation. The schedule was just a bit tight.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did things go with your own lab?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked at which disciplines we might be able to advance into the global top 20. However, centralised business intelligence is virtually non-existent at this university. In a couple of months\u2019 time, we\u2019ve been able to scramble together nine types of data about disciplines. That is a bit of a problem. We collaborated a lot with Arwin van Buuren\u2019s lab (\u2018Developing Our Societal-Impact Identity\u2019 \u2013 Dutch: \u2018Ontwikkelen van onze maatschappelijke impact identiteit\u2019), which was very helpful. We discussed research support at faculties extensively, for instance.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do you expect from the outcome?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were given an opportunity to discuss the process, and now all proposals are collected, and choices have to be made. I hope that awareness will increase with regards to the fact that we need to invest in research support. We are trailing behind other universities when it comes to support, and I hope that we will be able to make some progress thanks to the new strategy.<\/p>\n\n\t

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