Education & Talent | Creating talent

Multidisciplinary education, cross-university talent development

The theme “Talent” is a broad concept for us. The impact coalition ‘Creating talent for society’ will be involved in setting up multidisciplinary education, but also with talent development among both students and employees.
Our students and staff will have the opportunity to use the ecosystems of both our universities as a (team) development platform.
With sustainable public-private partnerships and citizen science we aim to ensure sufficient critical mass to be, and to remain, innovative.
As far as talent is concerned, we want to meet the labour market’s need for widely deployable (tech) students: broad-minded specialists, with an eye for their societal contribution. We want to increase the annual inflow and outflow of technology students in the Netherlands, and educate the talent needed to tackle future societal challenges.
By offering academic technology education in the heart of Amsterdam, we want to ensure broader geographic availability of this type of education in the Netherlands, while helping to answer the need for highly trained technical personnel.
Below you can find out more about our ambitions as VU Amsterdam and University of Twente in the field of education for the coming years.

Innovative bachelors with an inflow of 750-1.250 studenten per year

We are starting a number of new, joint Bachelor’s programmes. Physical educational activities in these programmes will mainly take place at the VU Amsterdam.

Opleidingen

Mechanical Engineering

Creative Technology

Technische Bedrijfskunde

We are working on the further growth of our joint Bachelor’s Mechanical Engineering, which we started in 2019. By 2023, we want an increased influx of 125 students, and by 2026, of 200 new students. Go to our application & practical info page.

We will start a joint Bachelor’s programme in Creative Technology (CT) in 2023 at the VU Amsterdam. After completing this programme, students must be able to directly enrol in 15 UT Master’s programmes, by making smart use of the flexible space in the curricula. In the first year, we aim for an influx of 80 students, followed by rapid growth to 150 new students. Go to our application & practical info page.

In 2023 or in 2024, we will start the Bachelor’s programme Industrial Engineering at the VU Amsterdam. We will aim for an influx of 80 students in the first year, followed by rapid growth to 200 new students.

Technische Bedrijfskunde

Additional Bachelor’s programmes

In 2021 and 2022, we will explore the possibilities for starting additional joint Bachelors, based on the experiences in the aforementioned programmes.

300-500 new students per year in UT's Technical master

To meet the demand in the labour market for highly educated technical staff, significant growth in the numbers of students enrolling in UT’s technical Master’s programmes is required. This is why we aim to develop an effective system of bridging programmes between the VU Amsterdam and the technical Master’s at the UT, by 2030. We will also investigate the added value of working with combined MSc-PhD programmes. Between now and 2023, we will take the following steps:

Connection scan for Bachelor’s and Master’s VU Amsterdam and UT
We will jointly carry out a scan of the options for linking Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes at the VU Amsterdam and UT, and map out possibilities for facilitating transfer through transition programmes and minors, and for making these transfers more attractive.
Transfer from VU Bachelor’s to UT Master’s programmes
For the transfer of VU students to technical Master’s at the UT, we will focus on information, bridging programmes and minors.
Launch of a Master’s specialisation in Sports Data Science
The Master’s specialisation ‘Sports Data Science’ will start in 2021 at the UT, and in 2022 at the VU Amsterdam. Depending on enrolment numbers (and market analysis), we will investigate whether it is desirable to convert the track into a new Master’s programme.

A reinforced life long learning proposition

As partners, we explicitly aim to contribute to the new challenges that higher education faces. We are exploring possibilities with which we can improve our national and international Life Long Learning proposition in the socio-technical academic education, by unifying our current offers, and developing new joint propositions. We want to combine the strengths of both institutions more effectively through the following steps:

Knowledge exchange digitisation

From 2021, we will explore how we can exchange and share knowledge and experience regarding the digitisation of higher education and research.

Life-Long Learning offer from Impact programmes

We will determine whether and how we can work together as of 2022, to initially develop an offer based on the themes reflected in our three shared Impact Programmes. We want to use each other’s locations and facilities as much as possible.

Privileged access for alumni and employees
We are exploring whether and how we can grant staff and alumni privileged access to this Life Long Learning offer from 2023. We will examine the possibilities and relevance of promoting each other’s offerings under a single banner.