Scientist, please keep doubting. This is the message that rector Han van Krieken had for the students and university employees in a filled Stevenskerk yesterday.

A professor is no longer an authority that we just believe blindly. What a professor says, is viewed as another opinion, seems to be the popular belief in the public debate. Unfairly, says the new rector Han van Krieken during his first opening speech in the Stevenskerk. ‘Scientific knowledge is not just an opinion, but the best explanations possible with the current data, observations and analysis.’

According to the rector, a true scientist is not afraid to doubt at all times. As an example, he gives the insight that a stomach ulcer is not the result of a dominant mother – which is what he learned in his medical education – but a bacterial infection. A young internist discovered that fact when he asked questions about the current explanation for the ulcer. The view on the disease changed forever and patients could get help in the form of a simple antibiotic treatment.

‘In the contemporary public debate, doubt is often seen as a weakness’, says Van Krieken. ‘Within minutes, an opinion has to be formulated and facts do not seem to matter that much. That is why a scientist, and actually every academically educated person, is often struggling in a debate where there is no room for doubt and nuance.’

Change perspective
Despite that, Radboud University has to stick to its role: enabling a different view on reality (of course, the rector is not afraid to throw the slogan change perspective into the church) and being brave enough to doubt.

This is the role the university wants to have in the region. Van Krieken says he wants to do more research in dialogue with local residents and directors. ‘In the upcoming year, I would love to talk to scientists and society – especially Nijmegen-based – to see if we can develop meaningful projects around happiness, spatial planning, safety and health.’

When it comes to education, he says he does not want to lean back and wait. His ambition is that all programmes get the predicate ‘excellent’ and every Nijmegen student learns to ask critical questions and to explore whether something is right or not. With that, he is back at the beginning of his speech: even students have to doubt. ‘I wish you a lot of curiosity.’