[staff-physics-and-astronomy-HL-UHD-UD] SEP Visitation "Natural and Life Sciences towards a Sustainable Society" in February 2026

[Juan Rojo]

Dear colleagues,

Apologies for the long email - please read it carefully since this topic 
has high importance for our department.

In the Netherlands, the national Strategy Evaluation Protocol (SEP) 
evaluates the performance of all research institutes/department/units 
every six years, see for the description of this scheme:

https://www.universiteitenvannederland.nl/files/publications/SEP_2021-2027.pdf

The main goal of the SEP is to evaluate a research unit in light of its 
own aims and strategy, but within a set of standards included in the 
protocol.

The SEP consists of a self-evaluation and an external evaluation by an 
(inter)national committee of peers. In the self-evaluation, the research 
unit outlines the ambitions and strategy and its functioning in relation 
to its own ambition and strategy. The self-evaluation forms the basis 
for the external evaluation which aims to validate and provide feedback 
to the institute through a site visit which also includes interviews and 
document analysis. The purpose of the SEP is thus to learn and improve.

In the self-evaluation, the unit reflects on its ambitions, strategy, 
activities, and performance during the previous seven years as well as 
for the future in a coherent, narrative argument, supported wherever 
possible with factual (quantitative) evidence. The self-evaluation 
furthermore focuses on the accomplishments of the units,  based on the 
three assessment criteria in the protocol (research quality, societal 
relevance and viability), illustrated by the four aspects: 1) Open 
Science, 2) PhD Policy and Training, 3) Academic Culture and 4) Human 
Resources Policy.

You can find attached the self-evaluation report and the subsequent 
committee report from the last SEP evaluation of our department 
(2010-2016), which was carried out together with our UvA-IoP colleagues.

The next round of the SEP evaluation of our department, corresponding to 
the period 2017-2024, will take place on *2-4 February 2026*. The 
overarching title is "Natural and Life Sciences towards a Sustainable 
Society" and we will be evaluated together with the Chemistry and A-LIFE 
departments. The UvA-IoP colleagues already underwent their own 
self-evaluation, see also the attached document for inspiration.

This SEP evaluation will cover the research carried out in five of our 
sections: Biophotonics & Medical Imaging, Physics of Living Systems, 
Biophysics of Photosynthesis, PhotoConversion Materials, and Quantum 
Metrology and Laser Applications. The Nikhef and ARCNL sections will not 
be considered, since they were already evaluated recently in the context 
of the corresponding institute-wide evaluations.

In the coming weeks we will get in touch to request input and support to 
write our self-evaluation, and also to prepare and participate in the 
site visit by the committee.

A first draft of the self-evaluation of our department (15 pages) needs 
to be completed by *August 15th 2025*, with final version submitted in 
the first week of September.

*Important*: please make sure you are available and in Amsterdam from 
Monday 2nd to Wednesday 4th 2026, which are the dates of the site visit 
of the committee. Some of you will be asked to be present in meetings 
with the committee, so it is crucial that as many of us as possible are 
available to help here.

No immediate action is required at this point other than blocking the 
dates of the on-site visit in your agendas. But please be aware that 
this exercise is of very high strategic importance for our department 
(it is for sure not a mere box-ticking, administrative exercise) so we 
should do our best to score very high in all categories.

We trust that whenever we will ask for inputs and for support with 
specific parts of the self-evaluation report, you will reply promptly.

Many thanks in advance for the help with this.

best,

Juan (on behalf of the MT)



-- 
-------------------------------------------------
Prof. Dr. Juan Rojo
Professor of Theoretical Physics
Head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy
Faculty of Science, VU Amsterdam
De Boelelaan 1081, 1081HV Amsterdam
----
Nikhef Theory Group, Science Park 105,
1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands
----
Webpage: http://www.juanrojo.com/
Zoom: https://vu-live.zoom.us/my/juanrojo
E-mail: j.rojo at vu.nl
         j.rojo at nikhef.nl
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