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This October, Tom Peijster will leave Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ and the Open Science Programme will gain a new Communications Advisor: Sake Slootweg. The UCU alumnus has worked at the university’s Sustainability Programme for the past four years. 

Let’s start at the beginning: who’s Sake Slootweg?

I’m really still just the UCU student who’s interested in everything and everyone: my telephone is usually tuned to news podcasts, my neighbours and I garden in the plot in front of my flat in Rotterdam, and I started training as a chef a few years ago. I cook a lot, and I write newspaper columns about what I cook. Although I’ve worked for universities for my entire professional career, I’ve noticed that my work usually involves broader social challenges. At the VU Amsterdam, for example, that was access to the job market for students who were the first in their family to go to university. Here at the UU, it’s been sustainability until now.

Why did you want to work with the Open Science Programme?

With the rise of fake news and climate change deniers, I started to worry about how the position of science in society seemed to be under pressure. That might not be a new development, but during the Trump administration it started keeping me up at night. Because the coronavirus pandemic illustrated precisely how important that trust is to make progress in the major challenges of our time. I’m pleased that my new job with the Open Science Programme will give me the opportunity to work on building that trust and the position of science in society. Hopefully I’ll also sleep better at night.

What kind of experience do you bring with you?

Bringing people together in an original way to create new connections. That’s what I love to do. When I started at the Sustainability Programme, I noticed how broad the UU sustainability community is, without people knowing each other personally. So my colleagues and I thought we needed to organise a big sustainability summer festival. Not just after-work drinks, but a real neighbourhood party with music in the barn at the UU farm De Tolakker. Nobody had done that before, but we achieved our goal: from climate professor to maintenance technician, everyone experienced - perhaps for the first time - that they were all working towards a single ambition.

What are you going to do at the Open Science Programme?

Based on where the programme is at the moment, I think I’ll be able to contribute by drawing Open Science more broadly into the mainstream at the university. I’m extremely impressed by the number of people already involved in the subject. Open Science is already prominently embedded in the new UU Strategic Plan, but the embedding in the organisation is just getting started. And I can play an important role in that through communications.

Where do you hope that Open Science will be in two years?

That even more people feel in their gut that Open Science has become an irreversible part of the Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ DNA. And that they can put the Open Science ambitions into practice in their daily work, without needing a special programme.