Naezer, M., van den Brink, M. & Benschop,Y. (2019). Harassment in Dutch Academia. Exploring Manifestations, Facilitating Facts, Effects and Solutions. LNVH.

In this report, we present the outcomes of the first Dutch national explorative study about the different manifestations of harassment experienced by women academics. For this study, we conducted 20 in-depth interviews and collected 33 written testimonials about women academics’ own experiences with harassment. Even though participants were sometimes reluctant to label their experiences as harassment, as has also been pointed out in earlier studies, their experiences all fell under our definition of harassment as “patterns of intense behaviour that have the aim and/or effect of violating a person’s dignity and/or that create a hostile working environment, thereby obstructing scholars in their academic work and their career progress.” Based on our analysis of the experiences of 53 women academics, we conclude (1) that women academics experience different manifestations of harassment, (2) that this harassment is facilitated by cultural and structural factors, and (3) that harassment can have detrimental effects on individuals, organisations and science in general.