Dynamics of Youth Organizational structure and units

Dynamics of Youth is one of the strategic themes of Utrecht University. The others are Institutions for Open Societies, Pathways to Sustainability, and Life Sciences.

The governance structure of Dynamics of Youth comprises the board of deans, a programme board, an education board, a shared advisory board with Child Health and four DoY communities. Each faculty has a representative on the programme board and the teaching board, respectively. The programme board works together with the Dynamics of Youth core team, which consists of a scientific director, managing director, public affairs officer, senior science communication advisor, project coordinator and a post-doc researcher. They facilitate, research, coordinate and organise collaboration and activities. The Dynamics of Youth core team isthe main point of contact for internal and external parties.

Dynamics of Youth Program Board

The program board is responsible for advising on strategic development of Dynamics of Youth, identifying opportunities to facilitate investments, insurance, and innovation, and increase cooperation with other (inter)national initiatives and developments. The program board currently consists of junior and senior researchers and meets approximately six to seven times a year. The Program Board advises the scientific director and the Dynamics Youth core team on content-related issues and identifies potential synergies and alignment between the different impact areas. It can do so on its own initiative or upon request by the scientific director, members of the core team, or the board of deans.

Members of the Program Board are appointed by the Board of Deans and the scientific director based on their engagement with Dynamics of Youth, expertise on youth development, and their affiliation with a specific UU faculty. A board member serves a term of 3 years. A board member will serve no more than two consecutive terms.

Organogram DoY

Governance of Research Communities

In the DoY communities, scholars from different disciplines collaborate across faculty boundaries and with societal partners. The communities are responsible for driving and deepening the interdisciplinary exchange on key issues related to DoY. In its lightest form, a community can stimulate discussions through symposia, sharing papers, and organizing network building events. In a more structural form, communities can establish several larger collaborations on specific themes that organize a range of activities and build more structural networks, including societal partners. The communities serve to make the expertise of the DoY community members more visible and accessible to our internal and external audiences. Thereby, we aim to achieve findability of researchers, research projects, cohort studies, and ongoing collaborations.

Community Chairs

Each research community is chaired by DoY community chairs at the intersections of disciplines and UU/UMCU entities. Community chairs impact on the direction, strategy, objectives, and results of the DoY research communities, adhering to the implementation of the six components of the TRIPLE model: team spirit; research; impact; professional performance; leadership; and education. A DoY community Chair serves a term of 4 years. A community chair will serve no more than two consecutive terms.

The community chairs stimulate, monitor, and evaluate the four areas of DoY impact and output: (1) research, (2) societal impact, (3) capacity building, and (4) sustainability as described in the Strategic Plan. They provide the leadership that actively nurtures the community in which members can flourish.

They commit to creating structures and incentives that support teams, knowledge goals, impact, and societal outcomes rather than bolstering individual researchers themselves. They operate in the context of a broader team where tasks are divided and where the DoY community works towards shared goals.

The community chairs show effective leadership that provides for a safe, open, constructive, diverse, and inclusive academic climatewhere sharing and collaborating is the norm. The community chairs are role models and driving forces for Open Science practices and interdisciplinarity.

DoY community governance

To realize our mission and build the networks necessary, Dynamics of Youth communities are encouraged to organize regular meetings. We encourage the DoY chairs to synchronize and align their organizational structures and meetings. This will help both the collaboration between communities and attracting new community members.