Roselle Jansen, MSc
Junior researcher / consultant at Dialogic innovation and interaction
In September 2016 I started studying at the University of Twente (UT), where I did the Master Conflict, Risk and Safety.
Why Psychology of Conflict, Risk and Safety?
It took me a while before I found this master, as I started looking for one around my hometown (Amsterdam). I knew I liked social psychology and criminology and as it turned out, the UT had the perfect combination for that. It was a big step to move from Amsterdam to Enschede, but it was totally worth it!
My favorite subjects were definitely Risk and Leadership in Societal and Technological Contexts [now integrated into: Psychology of Sustainability], and Psychology and Crime. In both subjects famous (crime) cases were discussed and there was enough room for interesting discussions. Besides, I really enjoyed my thesis and internship. For my thesis I researched communication errors in suspect interviews. For my internship I evaluated the effectiveness of a training that teaches security professionals (security guards, police, etc.) to recognize and respond to deviant behavior, to see if trained persons got better at their job than untrained persons. Both experiences gave me a glimpse of the work field and helped me orienting on the labor market after my studies.
Care, education and safety & crime
Since last year (2020) I have worked as a researcher / consultant at Dialogic innovation and interaction. Dialogic is an independent research and consultancy firm which specializes in supporting governments, knowledge institutes and intermediary organizations through policy research and strategic advice. In addition, they also develop and implement innovative methods for collecting data, data analysis and data visualization. Our clients are, for example, organizations such as the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Justice and Security, the Research and Documentation Centre (WODC), and the Dutch Police.
Dialogic has several areas of expertise, of which I (mostly) work in three: Care, Education and Safety & Crime. Of course the latter is mostly related to my background, however I find it interesting to broaden my knowledge in other areas too. I usually work on three to seven projects simultaneously. In every project I work in a different team, with a different project leader. The composition of a team depends on the subject. Several factors are weighed: who has the expertise?, how much work is it?, who has time?, is there someone that wants to learn a new skill? (which can be done in this project), etc. This makes working at Dialogic refreshing, interesting and most certainly challenging. My task(s) in the projects also depends on the described factors. Examples of tasks are: desk research; collecting data; conducting or taking notes of interviews; writing chapters of a report; etc. Literally every task involved in a research project could be one of mine.
I will name some examples of projects I have worked on. In the Safety & Crime area I worked, among others, on evaluating plans of the Dutch Cybersecurity Agenda (NCSA); conducted research in online gambling facilities and was involved in a research on how artificial intelligence can help recognizing perpetrators and predicting fight sequences (among others, we used facial recognition in this project).
The knowledge gained at the master Conflict, Risk and Safety is useful every day. In particular the general research skills, such as reading literature, writing reports and conducting interviews. During the master there were plenty of articles and books to read, papers to write and presentations to give. So I had plenty of practice on this! As you can probably imagine, the subject-specific knowledge I acquired in the master, is mainly useful in specific projects I am involved in.
Advise for (future) students
I would recommend new students to work hard and keep your eyes open for opportunities. The field of work you are going into is small (but amazing!), so work experience (even in the form of an internship) will be very useful. Teachers have a good network and are willing to help you out. So don’t be shy to ask them for help!
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