Why I Migrated to the Netherlands from the US
I migrated to the Netherlands from the US in 2022. I'm often asked why I did so. To answer those questions well, regardless of whether I had coffee in the morning, I wanted to write down here why and how I migrated to the Netherlands here.
Living in the US #
In 2019, I was living in the US doing my PhD at the University of Delaware. At that point, I had been in the US for 6 years. I was studying social psychology, with my mentor, Lisa Jaremka.
Among social psychologists like myself, there was a big debate about whether we were doing science right. A prominent social psychologist (Diederik Stapel) was caught fabricating data. Concerned, researchers in psychology came together, selected 100 old studies, and tried to re-do them, hoping that they will get the same results. The researchers found shocking results—they could only replicate 2 in every 5 studies. Researchers called the finding a "replication crisis".
Learning about a conference in Rotterdam #
I was also concerned about the replication crisis, and I learned about Society of Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS), a scientific group whose aim is to improve psychological science. Their annual conference was in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
At that time, I barely knew about the city and the country. The location was also a bit too far to travel. Nevertheless, I was very eager to go. So, I conjured up funding from my university to go there.
Experience in the Netherlands & Falling in Love #
In July 2019, my wife and I landed to Schiphol Airport, and took a train to Rotterdam. We still did not know that we would fall in love with the country in the next several days.
Looking back, I think of three reasons that I fell in love with the Netherlands, namely (1) its public spaces designed with care for people, (2) its protection of labor workers' rights, and (3) the drive towards Open Science.
Reason 1: Public Spaces Designed with Care for People #
The architecture of the Rotterdam Central station is beautiful. The whole building looks like a wedge diagonally pointing up to the sky. It also looks like a symbol of resilience for the city that was razed by Nazi Germany during World War 2.
Arriving at the station and walking towards the entrance of the building, I had a very strange feeling—I felt welcomed. But, I was just with my wife. Nobody welcomed me or greeted me personally. I looked around and wondered why I felt that way.
The entrance of the station was designed so that it widens towards the exit. The ceiling also gradually gets higher as you'd walk towards the main entrance. I saw people coming in and out freely. There was an ample room for people to gather, but also a feeling of nudge for people to go and explore the city, as if I'm gently escorted towards the exit. It was as if the space were telling me, "Welcome to the city, here you will find wonderful things." That was a good feeling.
There must be a lot of thought that went into this, I thought.
It happens that the Rotterdam Central station was not the only space designed with thought and care for people. During my stay, I learned that many infrastructures for pedestrians, bikes, and trains were not only readily available, but crafted with thought.
In my experience in the US, walkers, bikers, and train-riders were, I felt, second-class citizens. Most public spaces were centered around cars—roads were wide for cars, but sidewalks and bike lanes were narrow and often nonexistent. The Dutch public spaces blew my mind, at the same time I felt like I belong. And strangely, I felt like I was cared by the city and the environment. Not as a driver, but as a person.
Reason 2: Better Workers' Rights, even for Graduate Students #
During the conference, I wanted to get to know other fellow graduate students. After several years of being a graduate student, I knew what bonds graduate students together—that was, to gripe about how hard the life of a graduate student was to each other.
In the US, PhD graduate students are treated as students who are fortunate to get paid to study. After all, students are usually not paid to study. A university is very generous to pay students to pursue their passion as a form of stipend, even if it's 9 months per year. The rest 3 months? Don't be ungrateful, figure out by yourself. Paid vacation days? Don't act like you are employed—you are only a student, and thus you get none.
Life as a PhD student in the US was tough.
With my gripes, I approached my fellow PhD student attendees, who are coming from the Netherlands or other European countries. But, instead of approving and empathic nods of "me too", I got expressions of horror and disbelief: "Are you serious? You are not getting paid full year—let alone having no paid vacation?"
In return, I was shocked too—that they get benefits such as full-time contract and paid leaves, and overall being treated like an employee.
At the same time, I felt sick and disgusted. I realized that the US system exploited many PhD students unfairly. The system tells them that they are fortunate enough to continue what they want to do. As such, PhDs are not worthy of being treated as employees.
I learned that it's possible to imagine a system of care that treats PhDs as employees. I wanted to support that. Not the system of exploitation.
Side Note: I was fortunate to have a great mentor (Lisa Jaremka) who supported me through my education journey via summer funding and prioritizing work-life balance. But, I think my experience was an outlier.
Reason 3: Drive towards Open Science #
I care about Open Science—for me, it's about opening mind and heart, and advocating for it is to fight against global inequality (my LinkedIn post & ResearchEquals Interview).
When I was working towards a PhD in the US, I was doing practices in Open Science, such as writing hypotheses before I did a study (preregistration), and asking for reviewers to review my study proposal before data collection (registered report). I also posted actively on Open Science Framework to share my research and teaching materials.
But, I sometimes felt like it was a bit of lonely effort. Of course, my advisor was supportive of it, but shouldn't we be encouraged to do open science practices by the department, university, and the government? I felt like a coordinated support and initiative was lacking at that time in the US.
Learning about the Netherlands' Open Science landscape at the conference in Rotterdam, I felt like the country had a fertile ground for Open Science efforts to grow. Especially in terms of (a) the legal landscape and (b) the community.
Legal protection for researchers to share finding freely #
One challenge that I faced in sharing a publication is how to deal with the copyright with the publishers. Usually, when a researcher writes a paper for a publication, they cannot simply post it on public. The publishers will try to stop researchers from doing so, since they want to keep the article behind "paywall" and allow only people with subscriptions to access it with fee (or paid for by universities). This greed of the publishers locks up the information, and people without subscriptions will have a hard time accessing it. I experienced this problem first-hand when I was studying at a university in the Philippines. Being in a global South country, my university did not have money to pay subscriptions, and thus I could not access most publications—that is, officially speaking.
Unofficially, though, I did manage to get access to many publications thanks to many researchers posting their articles online "illegally", the act of civil disobedience for the value of openness. But, the publishers were obviously not happy about this, and they were threatening researchers, sending takedown notices to universities.
Now that I have something to share as a PhD student, I wanted to share articles freely, but I was also afraid of legal actions.
In the Netherlands, one did not have to worry. During the conference in Rotterdam, I learned that Dutch researchers have protection from the government. Because of the Taverne Amendment (Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Law), researchers can share their publications freely, even if the publisher prohibits authors to do so.
Having such a legal protection meant to me that the Dutch society was concerned about this problem, and working to solve it. I wanted to contribute to that kind of society.
Community building for Open Science #
Open Science cannot continue without support from peers. When I was doing a PhD, I felt a bit alone for doing Open Science practices. Sure, it felt a little good because I felt like I and my advisor were doing a special thing. But looking back, I was looking for other people who can share the passion with me.
In the Netherlands, I learned that there were efforts to create communities for Open Science (Open Science Community Netherlands, OSCNL). "Our Community is Open" is the slogan of the Open Science Communities.
At the SIPS conference, I had a taste of being surrounded by open-minded people who connect in Open Science values. I wanted to continue that feeling, and I saw the Netherlands as the place to be.
Deciding to Migrate and Next Steps #
At the end of our stay in the Netherlands, my wife and I were in love with the country. After coming back to the US, we reflected on our experience in the US, and we asked where we would be happier living in. We listed things that we like and dislike about the Netherlands vs. the US. For the list of likes, we had a longer list for the Netherlands, and for the dislikes, the US. Our answer was obvious: the Netherlands.
Oh, our cat did not get to make a list, but we decided to ask for her forgiveness later.
Then, we wondered how we can migrate to the Netherlands. What kind of visas do we need? Where will we be living? How about work? I plan to write about these in a separate post.
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