Learning, work and technology in times of transition Inaugural lecture by Professor Maaike Endedijk

“A key problem is that we barely understand workplace learning. Much research focuses on snapshots and averages, while learning is a dynamic process that fluctuates strongly within individuals and teams.” Together with musicians, Endedijk demonstrated how such dynamics can be expressed musically. She advocates for fine-grained, long-term process research, in which employees and teams are closely followed over time. Learning depends less on education or personality and more on the specific work situation at a given moment. These insights make it possible to better support learning processes, for example, by providing teams with feedback on collaboration and critical moments.

“Technology plays a dual role. It can make work safer, smarter, and more meaningful, but it can also lead to deskilling and the breakdown of learning pathways.” In manufacturing, for example, automation not only shifts tasks but can also hinder new workers from learning from experienced colleagues. In the Smart Skills@Scale research program, Endedijk therefore focuses on skilled workers in SMEs, including people with disabilities, aiming to use technology to empower rather than replace them.

Major transitions are never achieved by a single organisation alone. Endedijk’s chair places strong emphasis on learning communities, collaborations in which companies, educational institutions, governments, and professionals jointly learn and innovate. “In projects related to the energy and digital transition, more than one hundred such learning communities have already emerged. Their success largely depends on good ‘orchestration’: guiding tensions, conflicting interests, and different perspectives so that collaboration deepens rather than stalls.”

In the final part of her lecture, Endedijk explicitly looked ahead. For her research, this meant a conscious break from traditional static approaches focused mainly on highly educated groups. Her ambition is research that looks forward (see the future), connects societal and scientific impact (be the change), and is conducted in close collaboration with practice partners and other knowledge institutions (stronger together), including universities of applied sciences as equal partners. These partners also joined the academic procession at the start of her lecture.

For the university itself, she sees a key challenge. “Lifelong Learning (LLL) should not be a separate pillar or revenue model, but the connecting link between research and societal impact.” She therefore advocates for a sustainable regional LLL ecosystem, in which universities, universities of applied sciences, vocational education, and partners work together to connect learning, working, and innovation structurally. “To counter the ‘Calimero effect’ of this region and the university, I introduced the acronym TALLL: Twente Alliance Life Long Learning.”

The most personal and compelling part of the lecture was her call for cultural change in academia. Drawing on her own experiences with abuse of power, intimidation, and unsafe environments, she argued that these are not incidents but symptoms of a persistent culture. She shared how she nearly left academia and stressed the importance of colleagues standing up for one another when boundaries are crossed. With this, she explicitly connects her themes of learning and transformation to academia itself. Science should be a safe place to learn, work, and innovate—not just to produce outcomes. Behaviour cannot be “fixed” with isolated training or superficial measures; real change requires collective responsibility and active resistance. Change never starts with a system, but with one person who stands up. She then listed issues colleagues must stand up against, prompting the audience to literally rise: “Stand up against egos, stand up against fear and workload, stand up against inappropriate behaviour, stand up against breaking people, stand up against crossing boundaries, stand up against silence…!”

With “The Rhythm of Learning,” Endedijk connects learning, work, and technology to a broader call: to see science, organisations, and collaborations as places where people can safely learn, work, and innovate. Only then, she argues, can transitions become truly inclusive and sustainable.

At the end of her lecture, Endedijk shared a film tip: “Beyond the Blind Spot: Learning Communities with Practically Educated Professionals” (Radboud University).