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Claartje van Sijl

About Claartje van Sijl

I am a philosophical career counselor and trainer. From my home base in Utrecht (The Netherlands), I assist early and mid career academics throughout the world with questions of purpose, direction, balance and confidence in life and career. My PhD in philosophy combined with my broad training as a certified coach/counselor enable me to work at a deeper level with career questions.

Clients appreciate how my open and compassionate attitude creates a safe environment to look within themselves. They value how my concrete tools help them clarify their mission and trust in their expertise. Because of my personal experience with the quirks of academia, they find they do not need to explain to me the special requirements of working flexibly, independently and intensely on (research)projects with much responsibility, high pressure to perform, and long term job uncertainty.

More about Claartje

Entries by Claartje van Sijl

The Meat-Eating Flower | Academic Leadership Coaching

June 4, 2026/0 Comments/in Academic Leadership, Purpose & direction/by Claartje van Sijl

 Someone recently told me that academia has become a “meat-eating flower”. The image still haunts me. On the surface, the university is like a garden in bloom, a place of wisdom and truth. Beautiful yes, but beneath that lies a predator. It’s a ”flower” that consumes the life force and mental health of anyone […]

Rethinking the “Profkip”: From Counting Heads to Professionalizing Supervision

May 19, 2026/0 Comments/in Academic life/by Claartje van Sijl

Yesterday, I attended the symposium organized by the KNAW and the Jonge Akademie on the topic of “Profkippen”—professors supervising an excessive number of PhD candidates. The background document highlights that a dramatic rise in PhD FTEs since 2019 has outpaced the growth of supervisory capacity, creating a “hourglass” structure that compromises quality and well-being. While […]

In Defence of Love: A Manifesto for Researchers in Troubled Times

June 6, 2025/0 Comments/in Academic life/by Claartje van Sijl

In academia today, love has become a subversive force. I mean the kind of love rooted in intellectual dedication, ethical responsibility and commitment to truth, justice and wonder. The kind of love that listens, stays with complexity, and refuses to reduce people to data points or knowledge to commodities. This love asks not only what […]

My approach to philosophical counseling

May 27, 2020/0 Comments/in Academic life/by Claartje van Sijl

Reaping the rewards of the PhD coaching journey

May 12, 2020/0 Comments/in Academic life/by Claartje van Sijl

In the middle of isolation and social distancing measures I connected with two wonderful PhD candidates from Austria and Portugal, who also are a coach and a coachee or coaching client, for an open and honest conversation about the benefits and rewards of PhD coaching. We spanned Europe to talk about the human aspects of […]

The humanity of excellence: crossover from coaching practice to PhD

March 4, 2019/0 Comments/in Academic life, Free tools/by Claartje van Sijl

Tünde Erdös is a highly experienced executive coach who is currently doing her PhD research on coaching presence and the impact it has on coaching effectiveness with Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam Business Research Centre, NL in collaboration with Ashridge Centre for Coaching, UK as well as Case Western Reserve University, US. In other words, she […]

Why thriving is a better criterion for PhD success than excellence (part 1)

December 13, 2018/0 Comments/in Academic life, Free tools/by Claartje van Sijl

For her PhD project Katharina Lemmens-Krug (MSc UTwente) is studying challenges of present-day universities regarding their governance – more specifically concerning steering capacity of university leadership and the relation with centres for excellence in teaching and learning. In this interview dr. Claartje van Sijl talks with her about ways to understand excellence from the individual […]

Why thriving is a better criterion for PhD success than excellence (part2)

December 13, 2018/0 Comments/in Academic life/by Claartje van Sijl

For her PhD project Katharina Lemmens-Krug (MSc UTwente) is studying challenges of present-day universities regarding their governance – more specifically concerning steering capacity of university leadership and the relation with centres for excellence in teaching and learning. In this interview dr. Claartje van Sijl talks with her about ways to understand excellence from the individual […]

Does the new Code for Research Integrity really makes us into Better Researchers?

October 19, 2018/0 Comments/in Academic life/by Claartje van Sijl

The new Code for Research Integrity does not have the power it could have had, I argue. A code that only refers to research and not to acting with integrity in the broadest sense ipso facto cannot guarantee research integrity.  (A Dutch version of this article as been published on ScienceGuide.nl)   Questions with which researchers […]

PhD success and mental wellbeing in an international context (part 2)

June 27, 2018/0 Comments/in Academic life/by Claartje van Sijl

Judith Zijlstra (MA) is doing a part-time PhD project in sociology and migration studies. She investigates international mobility in academic careers of Iranians and the ways they translate professional experience from one context to the other. In this interview dr. Claartje van Sijl (independent career coach for academics) discusses with her what makes an international […]

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or call: +31(0)6 19 114 965
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