Congratulations, Dr. Verena Weimer!
phd defence
On 19 March 2026, Verena Weimer successfully defended her PhD thesis at Leiden University, titled 'Operationalisation of Higher Education Teaching Performance (HETP): recognising and rewarding teaching as a part of science is enabled by Open Scholarship'.
Verena Weimer was supervised by Tamara Heck, Thed van Leeuwen, and Marc Rittberger. For her dissertation, she investigated the role of teaching within the academic recognition and reward system. In the propositions accompanying her thesis, Verena highlights that ‘within the academic recognition and reward system, research achievements systematically receive greater visibility and symbolic capital than teaching achievements, thereby creating rational incentives for scholars to prioritise research over teaching’. Her thesis explores how teaching achievements can become more tangible for recognition and rewards and proposes open educational resources as an important element in making teaching efforts in higher education more visible and quantifiable.
In his laudation after the PhD defence, Marc Rittberger praised Verena’s work: ‘From the very beginning, Verena showed remarkable engagement with the field and the research community. She quickly began building her own professional network, which ultimately led her to apply as a PhD candidate in Leiden. Furthermore, Verena has consistently contributed to discussions and developments within the field of science studies and open science.’
Verena works at the DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education (Germany) and did her PhD as an external candidate at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University. With a disciplinary background in educational science, Verena examines how educational perspectives can be integrated into scientometrics and research evaluation systems. In 2023, she undertook a research stay at the Georgia Institute of Technology, collaborating with Cassidy R. Sugimoto and Vincent Larivière on the relationship between research and teaching. She has also contributed actively to the research community, participating in events such as the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics Conference (ISSI) and helping organise the Science and Technology Indicators Conference 2023 (STI 2023).
At CWTS, we are very proud of Verena’s achievement and look forward to following her work and achievements to come and wish her all the best for her future career!