AYA Quartet

As young academics, we are facing multiple challenges. Not only are you supposed to develop your own research line, publish papers, and secure your own funding, in addition you should start or manage your own research group, be a good supervisor and colleague, a great teacher, and oh, yeah, of course, also secure a healthy work-life balance. Taking on all of these roles at once can be highly demanding and challenging, especially in the midst of what can be a competitive work environment, and sometimes one that lacks job security or promising career prospects.

How to navigate this academic landscape? Clearly, there’s no one size fits all solution. But a little information and support from your fellow young academics can go a long way. That’s why the 2023 AYA cohort created a Quartet game: distributed over eight topics we discuss challenges and give pointers on contract-related matters, career prospects, a healthy work environment, work-life balance, research, communication, impact, and teaching. 

The cards provide resources and point you towards, for example, the impact indicators of NWO and the university job classification system (UFO), or towards trainings offered at our universities on teaching styles and intercultural communication. Next to these resources the cards also provide questions that we may want to ask ourselves and each other more often: “what do you like doing outside of work?”, “how can you protect your personal time?”.

By playing the game we hope to spark a conversation about these important topics, and when needed, provide some support. Let’s help each other, point each other in the right direction, and create a supportive environment. Because in the end, the young academics will be the future of academia.

Talking about community: did you come across a resource that could be helpful to other young academics? Please reach out to Tessa Blanken or Aybüke Özgün to see if we can feature it online- the web-page accompanying the cards is constantly in development and can be updated with new trainings, resources, or materials. 

The AYA Quartet was created by Tessa Blanken, Aybüke Özgün, and Melissa Hooijmans in collaboration with the AYA 2023 cohort. The cards were designed by Hjalmar Haagsman. Want your own set? Reach out to Aybüke or Tessa. Cannot wait to play? Here you can download the quartet game.