How can we measure responsibly in a world increasingly driven by data? This Future Challenges session brings together experts from a range of scientific fields to reflect on this question. Three speakers, with backgrounds in respectively clinical psychology, microbiology and economics, will introduce the challenges and limitations of current measurement practices in their fields, and share their visions for developing more meaningful and responsible measurement in the future.

After these presentations, a roundtable discussion will invite all participants to reflect on how the highlighted challenges and proposed solutions resonate within their own fields, and to identify areas for cross-disciplinary approaches.

Speakers

Femke Truijens

Femke Truijens (EUR) is Assistant professor at the department of Clinical Psychology, conducting interdisciplinary research on the borderline of clinical psychology, methodology and philosophy of science. She will discuss limitations of quantitative measurement of mental health and her mixed-methods-measurement and validity-in-action solutions.

Aline Potiron

Aline Potiron (UU) is Post-doc at the Freudenthal Institute and combines her background in microbiology with philosophy of science. In her current research, she studies the interplay of races in biological sciences and the microbiome in Latin America and proposes solutions to practitioners to avoid racism.

Berend van der Kolk

Berend van der Kolk (VU) is Associate professor at the School of Business & Economics and author of The Quantified Society. His research concerns the measurement of 'performance' in organizations and its social and ethical implications. He will highlight how various types of performance measures impact individuals, organizations and society.

About the organiser: Jolien Francken

Jolien Francken (UvA) is Assistant professor at the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, and aims to bridge the fields of neuroscience and philosophy of science. Her research focuses on measurement in neuroscience and includes topics such as neural mechanisms, cognitive ontology, and translation problems between science and society. As a Research lead at the IAS she initiated a research line on Measurement across the sciences. She is currently L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Fellow at NIAS-KNAW.

Registration

Registration for this session will be available from February 1, 2026.