Interview Andrik Becht
Assistant Professor Youth and Family
What is your research about?
My research is about how adolescents develop. Why do some of them thrive while others do not? I am currently focusing on the growing concern among young people about climate change and their development of an eco-identity. So, why do some young people identify with a sustainable lifestyle much more than others do? I am also interested in why, for example, some of these ‘sustainable’ students have chosen to be active in Fridays for Future, a global movement of young people committed to climate action via low-threshold protests and demonstrations. I use the answers to these questions and others to work with colleagues from Geosciences and social partners to develop educational resources like the , a methodology for teaching students about sustainability. This methodology focuses on a hope that is not naive ("Climate change isn’t that bad" or "Rising sea levels really won’t be a problem in the short term") or passive ("The government will fix it" or "Technologies will be developed to reduce emissions"). Instead, we try to encourage active hope.
How long have you been working at FSBS?
I have been working at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences on and off since 2014. After obtaining my doctorate in Utrecht, I started working at Erasmus ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ and Leiden ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ in 2014. However, I always maintained a connection with UU whenever I was employed elsewhere. In a sense, I never really left – and there’s a good reason for that.
Why do you like working at UU/FSBS?
Our faculty has a strong focus on certain topics, via our university's strategic themes for instance. My work involves two of the four themes: Dynamics of Youth and Pathways to Sustainability. These themes transcend the individual faculties and have enabled me to initiate new collaborations with colleagues outside our faculty, in the field of research and educational innovation. My research projects therefore involve a great deal of interdisciplinary collaboration. It definitely is an advantage that Utrecht is a comprehensive university because it gives me easy access to a wide range of different disciplines. I would say that it is one of UU’s great strengths.
I take advantage of UU as a comprehensive university in my teaching as well. For example, I am currently working on an educational innovation project with colleagues from the faculties of Humanities and Geosciences. The Utrecht Education Incentive Fund has awarded us a grant to do this. Geoscience students often start their degree programmes full of hope and wanting to make the world a better place. However, we now know that as students learn about the so-called tipping points and melting ice caps, they often becoming preoccupied with concerns about climate change. Students need education that seriously considers climate-related emotional and psychological issues too. They also want to know what they can do to impact climate change themselves. This prompted me and a number of lecturers from different faculties to team up to answer the following question: what can we do to help students become more resilient and develop a perspective for action?
What makes UU unique?
Interdisciplinary collaboration continues to be a challenge. It all seems quite simple on paper, but in practice it takes a long time to get on the same page and speak the same language. This is why the grants we get for the strategic themes are so important; they enable us to initiate collaborations like this. One of these grants brought me into contact with Tim Favier from the Faculty of Geosciences. I have worked with him in a number of other projects now. The grant was a real springboard for the good collaborative relationship we have today. We are still profiting from this in new projects and, hopefully, the same applies for research and education in a general sense. The strategic themes have another advantage too: they help you meet colleagues from other faculties and different scientific disciplines.