Twenty-Five Years with Tilburg University: A Story of Friendship, Loss, and Science That Matters
It was 2001 when Deon Meiring and I boarded a plane to the Netherlands with a clear but ambitious goal: to find the best cross-cultural psychologist in the world to serve as the primary promoter for Deon's doctoral study on bias and equivalence of psychometric testing in South Africa. I would serve as co-promoter. We were looking for someone who truly understood what it meant to do rigorous, fair psychological measurement in a society as complex and diverse as ours.
We found more than we bargained for.
At Tilburg University, we met Prof. Fons van de Vijver and Prof. Ype Poortinga — two of the foremost authorities in cross-cultural psychology on the planet. They welcomed us with intellectual generosity and genuine warmth. What was meant to be a search for a promoter turned into the beginning of a friendship — and the seed of a research network that would define the next twenty-five years of my academic life.
A Thesis That Mattered
Deon completed his PhD in 2007. His thesis, Bias and Equivalence of Psychological Measures in South Africa, was not merely an academic exercise. Grounded in the realities of post-apartheid South Africa and the imperatives of our Bill of Rights, it confronted a fundamental question of justice: can we trust the psychological tests we use in a multilingual, multiethnic society to be fair to everyone? The answer was complicated — and the work of answering it properly changed the field.
That question, and the rigour Deon brought to it, set the tone for everything that followed.
The People Who Made It Real
Over the years, the Tilburg network grew into something I could not have imagined on that first flight in 2001. It came to include Prof. Fons van de Vijver, Prof. Ype Poortinga, Prof. Kutlay Yagmur, Prof. Jac van der Klink, Prof. Roland Blonk, Prof. Evelien Brouwers, Prof. Margot Joosen, and Prof. Marianne van Woerkom. Each of these colleagues brought something irreplaceable — their expertise, their networks, their willingness to take South African questions seriously and to work on them alongside us as true partners.
Through these relationships, we gained access to broader academic networks worldwide. We developed our own capabilities as researchers. We sent students to Tilburg — most recently Ms Kele Ramagaga of the Optentia Research Unit, who spent five months there — and welcomed Dutch colleagues to our campuses. But above all, we built something that outlasts any single publication: solid, lasting human relationships grounded in mutual respect.
What We Built Together
Our research tackled some of the most complex and consequential challenges at the intersection of work, psychology, and society. Three streams stand out.
In the area of cross-cultural psychology and psychometric fairness, our work with Fons and Ype — anchored by Deon's foundational studies — examined bias and equivalence in cognitive and personality tests across South Africa's diverse population groups. This body of work contributed directly to the South African Personality Inventory (SAPI), an indigenous personality instrument developed in all eleven official languages. Key publications include our 2005 study on construct, item and method bias across 13,681 South African Police Service applicants; a 2006 investigation of the 15FQ+ across 16,339 participants; a 2013 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology on personality descriptions across ethnocultural groups; and our 2022 review of psychometric test use in South African organisations.
In the area of unemployment and inclusive employment, our collaboration with Roland Blonk led to the Qhubekela Phambili project — bringing the evidence-based JOBS programme to unemployed individuals in South African township communities. The research, published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2020, was among the first rigorous evaluations of a psychosocial employment intervention in the South African context.
And in the area of sustainable employability and the capability approach, my partnership with Jac van der Klink — who holds an Extraordinary Professorship at NWU — has been one of the most intellectually rewarding of my career. Together, we asked not just whether people can work, but whether work allows them to live well and fully. Jac's 2016 paper in the Scandinavian Journal of Work and Environmental Health — proposing a model of sustainable employability grounded in Amartya Sen's capability approach — reshaped how I think about my own field. In May 2026, we published the culmination of years of collaboration: Capabilities at Work: The Added Value of the Capability Model for Well-Being and Work, available as Open Access through Cambridge University Press. It is one of the most meaningful things I have been part of in my professional life. You can read it freely here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/capabilities-at-work/2FCF34B1EDDC1514A8ACF179CDE49970
Remembering Those We Lost
I cannot write this story without pausing on loss. Both Deon Meiring and Fons van de Vijver passed away in 2019. They were colleagues, yes — but more than that, they were friends. Deon had the vision to make that first journey to Tilburg. Fons opened his door, his mind, and his network to two South Africans he barely knew. Both of them shaped who I am as a researcher and as a person. I carry them with me.
26 June 2026: A New Chapter
On 26 June 2026, Prof. Geert Vervaeke and Linda van der Tuijn from Tilburg University visited NWU to explore new directions for collaboration. Sitting with them, I was struck by how much has grown from that first visit twenty-five years ago — and how much more is still possible.
Tilburg University's strategy calls for collaboration that goes beyond disciplinary and organisational boundaries. NWU's strategy prioritises internationalisation, partnerships, and impact. In that sense, this partnership has always been ahead of both strategies.
What started with two friends on a plane has become something none of us fully foresaw: a network of scholars across two continents, a body of research that has touched real lives, and a set of friendships that science made possible.
I am grateful for all of it.
On the photo: Prof. Johanita Kirsten, Ms Kele Ramagaga, Prof. Blessed Ngwenya, Prof. Geert Vervaeke (Tilburg University), Prof. Ian Rothmann, Dr Amanda Erasmus, Prof. Mirna Nel, Dr Benjamin Rapanyane, and Linda van der Tuijn (Tilburg University).
— Prof. Sebastiaan (Ian) Rothmann, Optentia Research Unit, North-West University
