Universities present ideas to lower pressure on researchers

Initiative aims to implement fairer ways of assessing research talent and performance

Dutch universities have teamed up with the national research council NWO to plan and implement a series of short-term measures to reduce the pressure on scientists to find funding.

The partners said that the need to apply for extra money was diverting the mental resources of scientists away from research and creating too much extra workload. In order to reduce such pressures sufficiently, additional financial resources from the government are needed, they said.