At the request of the National Network of Female Professors (LNVH), Naezer collected and analysed a range of reports from female researchers and scientists concerning bullying, sexual intimidation and academic sabotage at the university.

Such intimidation never takes place at a specific moment, says Naezer. Rather, a pattern is always involved that makes breaking through difficult. She demonstrated how such patterns come about through power structures, the drive to compete and a lack of protection for victims.

Steps

“Not only is attention finally being paid to social insecurity at universities,” says jury member and AOb board member Marijtje Jongsma, “but universities are now also taking steps to increase social security.”

There were two other nominees for the Kiss. The award could also have gone to three whistle-blowers from the University of Leiden: Laura Steenbergen, Roberta Sellaro and Bryant Jongkees, who had the courage to expose suspected academic misconduct on the part of a prominent psychology researcher.

And finally, UvA professor Olav Velthuis was nominated. He initiated a petition after Erasmus University Rotterdam had had the emails of its employees sifted through in order to identify a leak to the press. This had been preceded by reporting by the NRC Handelsblad newspaper on alleged plagiarism by former UvA vice-chancellor Dymph van den Boom, who at the time was the interim dean of a turbulent faculty at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Since 2017

The Academie-Kus has been awarded since 2017. It was the brain-child of the VAWO academic union (now merged into the AOb) and two pressure groups.

Previous winners were Dutch Socialist Party MP Jasper van Dijk (2017), Rens Bod of WOinActie (2018) and the presidents of the University of Amsterdam and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Geert ten Dam and Mirjam van Praag (2019).