This year’s theme of the LNVH (Landelijk Netwerk Vrouwelijke Hoogleraren) Spring Symposium is ‘The Engaged University. Frameworks for academic activism’. The aim of the symposium is to reflect on an abstract level on academic engagement and aim to explore questions like: what do we mean when we use the words ‘activism’ and ‘academic activism’? It also wants to address the challenges and dilemmas faced by academics who choose to become activists – in whatever form that may take – and the barriers they may encounter. Particular attention will be paid to the role of women scholars in public debates and activism related to improving policies for women in the workplace.

Speakers:
• Keynote speaker Marian Baird (Professor of Gender and Employment Relations and Head of the Discipline of Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney) will discuss the dilemmas, tensions, and results of an academic role in the public domain.
• Farzana Bashiri (PhD student at Lund University) will talk about activism as a driver for social change. In her doctoral project, her ambition is to create a space for reflection and dialogue on the multifaceted role of scholars in contributing to societal transformation in the backdrop of grand global challenges.
• Alyt Damstra (scientific researcher at the The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR)) will focus on the role of knowledge institutions that engage in the so-called boundary work between science and politics/policy.
• Marc van Oostendorp (professor of Dutch and Academic Communication at the Radboud University of Nijmegen and active member of WOinActie) will focus on the science communicator as activist, and the activist as science communicator.
• Petra Verdonk (including Dutch Association for Gender & Health) will talk about ‘professionalism’ and the right of academics to speak out.