Radical Sabbaticals

Growing up, I believed that academics were shielded from the clutter of everyday life and had the peace to think, discuss, perform the occasional experiment and think somemore. After starting a research lab, however, I discovered there was not much peace in academia. The day was just not long enough to fit everything in, and though a sabbatical leave always lurked at the horizon, there never seemed to be a good moment to take a break. After three hectic years at the helm of the Royal Netherlands Academy and a particularly productive period for the lab (in my virtual absence, as the postdocs like to point out), a sabbatical could no longer be postponed. With two sons at university, I did not need to stay in one place for an entire year. My years at the Academy made me aware of how profoundly individual scientists and their science are affected by their environment, so my sabbatical became a world tour: six weeks each in six countries, interspersed by four week stints back in Utrecht, with great university cities serving as a home base from which to travel to teach and talk science. From Melbourne, I visited Sidney, Adelaide, and Brisbane, and from the Weizmann, I went to Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem. New York is next, then San Diego and Paris, and finally Hong Kong. The experience will be a unique opportunity to see what drives scientists today, where science is going, and what the local and global challenges are.