A large part of my work has consisted of building and maintaining the places where scholarship happens. I collected three examples of what that has meant in practice, followed by a list of current and earlier roles.
Building a platform: Neerlandistiek
In 2000 I cofounded Neerlandistiek.nl, the first open-access peer-reviewed journal in Dutch studies, which aimed at bringing together (again) the subdisciplines of the field; from 2011 I also edited Neder-L, the electronic newsletter the field had been reading since the 1990s. In 2016 the two became Neerlandistiek, an open-access daily platform for the study of Dutch language and literature. I have been its editor-in-chief since.
It now publishes some eight items a day, written by hundreds of authors every year, among them a column of mine on roughly three hundred days a year. Separate editorial teams run its strands for early-career researchers (Jong Neerlandistiek), for Frisian (Frisistyk), for secondary-school teachers (Neerlandistiek voor de klas) and for Dutch studies outside the language area (Neerlandistiek Mondiaal). Most of the work is done by volunteers, a small but growing part by paid staff.
In July 2025 I established the Neerlandistiek Foundation, so that the platform would rest on a structure rather than on a person. I drafted its articles of association and an editorial charter that separates the editorial line from the board, and secured recurring external funding for editorial and technical work. The stated aim is that the editorship should become a paid and transferable post. In 2025 the platform received the Visser-Neerlandia Prize of the General Dutch Association (ANV).
None of this initially involved formal authority over anyone. What it required was a reason for people to keep showing up, and an organisation that would outlast the enthusiasm.
Speaking up: WOinActie Nijmegen, 2024–2025
In 2024–25 I served as a spokesperson and co-organiser of WOinActie Nijmegen, working with colleagues and students across faculties to organise public action on the proposed national cuts to higher education. In December 2024 five of us wrote an open letter to the city of Nijmegen; on the national strike day of 13 March 2025 the university newspaper reported from the campus. An example of my own contribution to the debate is set out in a bilingual speech from November 2024.
The work was mainly organisational: getting faculties, unions and student bodies to act together, and keeping the argument about the value of the humanities rather than about ourselves.
Governance, from a section to a national programme
Since 2024 I have headed the section for Dutch linguistics at Radboud University. That means line responsibility for two teams: annual appraisals, promotion cases, social safety, and staff planning at a moment when the faculty has to spend less.
Since 2025 I have represented Radboud University on the steering committee of the national programme for Dutch studies, which funds curriculum development, professional development for teachers and outreach across the Dutch universities. I hold one of its portfolios and am setting up the national centre for the professional development of teachers of Dutch.
Earlier work of the same kind: chairing a review committee for the Dutch Language Union in 2021, on appointment by its Committee of Ministers; eight years on the works council of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences; chairing the research master’s programme in linguistics at Leiden; and heading the linguistics department of the Meertens Institute in four separate terms between 1999 and 2022. Since 2024 I have been a member of the scientific council of the MSHS Sud-Est (CNRS) in Nice.
Current roles
- Head of the Dutch Linguistics Section, Radboud University (2024–)
- Member of the steering committee for the national Dutch studies programme, for Radboud University (2025–)
- Founder and board member, Neerlandistiek Foundation (2025–)
- Coordinator, Dudoc-Alfa, supporting secondary-school teachers who are undertaking doctorates (2024–2027)
- Board member, LingOA Foundation — Linguistics in Open Access (2021–)
- Board member (2018–) and secretary (2024–), Council for Dutch Studies
- President, Esperanto Nederland (2022–)
- Board member, Foundation for the Promotion of Academic Dutch Studies (2018–)
- Board member, Amsterdam Foundation for Yiddish Lexicography
- Member of the board of trustees of the Chair of Interlinguistics and Esperanto, University of Amsterdam (2025–)
- Member of the Conseil Scientifique, MSHS Sud-Est (CNRS), France (2024–2028)
- Member of the national subject expertise team for Dutch, linking university research to the school curriculum (2019–)
- Member of the sector council of the General Education Union AOb (2022–)
- Advisory board, Peitho, Radboud Centre for Rhetoric (2018–)
- Member of the Akademio de Esperanto (2022–2031); convenor of its working group on CEFR examinations
Earlier roles
- Head of the linguistics department, Meertens Institute (KNAW): 1999–2002, 2003 (interim), 2007–2008 and 2019–2022
- Chair of the research master’s programme in linguistics, Leiden University (2008–2014)
- Member of the works council, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (2010–2018)
- Chair of the steering committee, Old-World Conferences in Phonology (2003–2019)
- Chair of a review committee for the Dutch Language Union (2021)
- Co-opted board member, Generative Linguistics in the Old World (1999–2009)
- Board member, Society of Dutch Literature
- Secretary, Beste-ID Foundation (2024–2026)
- Dutch Language Union, committee on academic Dutch studies (2020–2021); KNAW committee on Dutch studies (2019)
- Coordinator, Phonological Theory Agora, a CNRS network (2015–2018)
- External examiner, BA and MA in Linguistics, University College Dublin (2010–2014)
Review and assessment
I review grant proposals for NWO (Netherlands), DFG (Germany, including Sonderforschungsbereiche), NSF (United States), CNRS (France), ANVUR (Italy), the Research Council of Norway and the AHRB (United Kingdom), and I have written tenure and promotion assessments for Yale, Rutgers, Toronto, Manchester, University College London, Leipzig and Crete, among others. Journal and conference refereeing is listed under Editorial Work.