On November 24th, ARMA-NL had their yearly General Assembly (GA) meeting in Groningen and Ana Rodrigues was there to represent Impacter and learn more about Research Managers and Administrators (RMAs).
During the GA, in the morning, after the opening from Prof. Dr. Jouke de Vries (Chair CvB RUG) and the keynote by Dr. Barry van der Strate (Head Research Office, UMCG ARMA-NL), ARMA-NL thanked and said goodbye to some of their board members and (re-)elected the board members for the coming period. Some interesting topics were brought up including the importance/need to find a common name for the profession and the introduction of micro-credentials for the workshops/courses given by ARMA-NL.
After lunch, there was time for knowledge exchange sessions where important topics were discussed. Budget cuts and reward & recognition were amongst the covered topics and it is clear that these are common concerns throughout the several institutions in The Netherlands. The professionalization of the RMA role was also debated and it’s agreed that there is no clear path for how to become a RMA or how, as a RMA, you can continue learning and evolving.
After a day of sharing and discussing, one thing is clear, there is a common effort to strengthen the RMA role in The Netherlands and to take it one step further.