Speaker on June 28, 2023

It has always fascinated Marinka Kuijpers that you are not able to influence everything in your career. So how do you manage your happiness at work? And how can you promote happiness at work? What skills do we need to teach young people to achieve this? Her research and advice are characterized by a practice-oriented approach.

Looking at today, Marinka Kuijpers advocates approaching lifelong learning differently than we have done so far. To consider it not only from a solid economic prospect,, but also from a meaningful perspective. How do you help young people prepare for the rapidly changing labour market? How do you teach them to formulate the right questions to move forward?

Research shows that there are large groups of people who do not keep up and experience obstacles in their
careers. Think, for example, of people with a low level of education, a higher age, or a part-time job. She
supervises two PhD students from the Open University who are going to investigate exactly what these
exceptions are. In which situation(s) is someone from one of these groups able to manage their own career?
What are key factors and what does this require of the government, educational institutes, or the employer?
As far as she is concerned, connection is an important keyword. She likes to explain this in her presentation.

Publications:

● Kuijpers, M. (2019): Career guidance in collaboration between schools and work organisations. British
Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 47(4), 487-497. DOI: 10.1080/03069885.2018.1548007

● Kuijpers, M., Semeijn, J. Van der Heijden, B. (2019). Een loopbaanperspectief op een ‘leven lang
ontwikkelen’. Science guide 14 mei 2019. https://www.scienceguide.nl/2019/05/een-
loopbaanperspectief-op-leven-lang-ontwikkelen/