In the future, scientists might not get a contract with a number of hours they need to work, but with goals they need to accomplish. How they divide their time will be up to them as long as their targets are met.
That is one of the points that Dutch universities are trying to incorporate in the collective labor agreement (CLA) negotiations which started last week. Because science is not a `nine-to-five' job, the higher education institutions want to experiment with contracts that are based on job description instead of fixed working hours.
The economy is more favorable than during previous collective labor agreement negotiations, which is why the universities are willing to make arrangements on salary raises of more than the inflation level. Such arrangements have already been made in comparable CLAs of the state and the institutions of higher professional education. To trade off the pay raise, the number of vacation days is to be decreased. That way the universities can free some extra money.
That money is needed for the improvement of the position of young scientists. The universities think that there is too little attention given to young employees in the current CLA. Universities educate more and more PhDs but after graduation the researchers cannot find a permanent job. Universities want to expand the possibilities by creating extra jobs for PhD graduates and post-docs, which may lead to permanent appointments. Moreover, there should be more thought given to tenure tracks in order to keep young talent at universities.
