Research support is a top-class sport

Sometimes it’s just like top-class sport: Sarah Coombs not only became SURF Research Support Champion (in 2022), but has won no fewer than six prizes and awards as a research support officer in recent years. So we may speak of a true champion. Who is the person behind the Open Science adviser for Saxion University of Applied Sciences and the Association of Universities of Applied Sciences?

Path cut off

That backfired, at least initially. "In theory, I could work in a university library anywhere in the world; in North America, the degree is even mandatory. But in the Netherlands, they only look at whether you have a PhD yourself. I never found out why that works that way." 

Thus, the road to university libraries was cut off for her. But luck was on her side: one of the teachers at her integration course was married to the director of the Athenaeum library in Deventer. She was welcome to do a language internship there. Just as that ended, a vacancy came up. She decided to continue as a volunteer for a while and was then hired. "That's how I became an information specialist at Saxion, because the library was part of that college."

Good timing

It was the right moment. Universities of applied sciences had just become responsible for their own research. So there was a lot of work to do at Saxion for a specialised research support officer. "For example, one of the first questions I had to answer at the library was: do we have the right databases for scientific research? The answer was no, because that had never been the focus."

 "Gradually, we made changes at Saxion that have turned research into a solid arm of the library. This was mainly because the team leaders gave me the freedom to participate in national and international projects. This allowed me to do the work I was trained for and where my passion lies."

Eyes glazing over

What is the most difficult thing in her work? She doesn't have to think about that for even one second. "The middle management in higher professional education! Those people have to make the decisions, such as whether someone can contribute to the DCC-PO. But half the time they have no idea what it's about."

"That in itself is understandable. We cannot expect them to know what is needed for a research infrastructure, or what the differences are between commercial parties or whatever. But getting them to ask someone else for an explanation is a tough challenge. And then the question is whether they understand that explanation."

Her frustration is palpable. "We have good contact with the administrators of the universities of applied sciences, for instance, through board committees. They are informed and have often already made policies. And on the work floor, the support staff also know about the issues. But when I talk to middle managers, I see their eyes glaze over. You see them thinking: what is this about?" 

"Sometimes they seem to get it as the conversation progresses. But subsequently, the policy is still not implemented. Then what can I do? I'm just a consultant." 

Games

Yet Coombs doesn't give up. She is using her creative side to promote understanding of Open Science in a playful way. Together with colleagues in other countries, she has developed three educational games.

The first was OER Escape Room and revolved around open educational resources. "Together with a group of colleagues, you have 45 minutes to save your job. You do this by using open educational resources to develop a new module that attracts students. The game uses physical props. I made those myself, because naturally we had no budget." 

The second game, Open Science in Peril, is a real game show. "It is partly based on Jeopardy, but we put our own spin on it." This game attracted so much attention that Coombs and her co-creators even won an award for it. 

A sum of money was attached to that prize, allowing them to put extra effort into the third game: What About Open Science. That one is specifically designed to free middle managers from their ignorance: "They discover what the buzzwords are in Open Science, what you can make possible with money and what the decisions are about in the first place." 

One wish

Time for the key question: what does Coombs think of the progress of Open Science? "If you look back, we've come a long way. But if you look ahead, there is still so much to do..."

At Saxion, the Open Access policy from 2012 has just been rewritten. For the first time, there is now a budget to let researchers publish articles that can be read by anyone free of charge. Equally important is the model Open Access policy recently developed for the Association of Universities of Applied Sciences. "I see that many universities of applied sciences now have an OA policy for the first time", Coombs says. 

But she still has many wishes and ambitions. One of them she is keen to share here: "I would really like to see the DCC-PO fully recognised – by the whole of higher education and at all levels of management – as an expertise centre for research support. So we don't have to keep begging for money, but are collectively seen as experts, who are actually allowed to use their expertise."

Text: Aad van de Wijngaart
Photos: Jelmer de Haas