And another academic year begins…

It’s also an opportunity to see what the big issues are in Dutch higher education and how prominent the international dimension features in these issues. What will these speakers talk about or, if the opening of the year has already taken place, what did they talk about?

A quick look at this year’s guest speakers and the topics of their speeches reveals that the universities have their eyes set on the future. The future of higher education seems to be the preferred topic in this year’s opening ceremonies.

The future is digital

EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes will deliver a speech with the promising title ‘Europe 3.0’ at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Although some might claim that Europe has not yet entered the Web 2.0 era, Kroes – herself an alumnus of Erasmus University – will reveal her ideas on Europe’s digital future. An IT-festival, entitled 'Erasmus Virtual Campus', including presentations on e-learning and e-research will precede the Opening ceremony.

At Inholland University of Applied Sciences (UAS), the future is digital. The ongoing digitization of society and the blurring boundaries between the physical and virtual reality will provide new opportunities for higher education claimed keynote speaker and trend watcher Adjiedj Bakas in Rotterdam last Wednesday.

Differentiation is the future

The University of Maastricht addresses the question what the world will look like in twenty years, and what universities should be doing today to gear their education and research towards this outlook? And who better to ask about the future than an historian? In Maastricht historian and author Bettany Hughes will present her views on the Socratic future of education and society.

Discussions on the future of Dutch higher education focus mainly on the report ‘Differentiation in threefold’. This report was written by an international advisory committee on the future sustainability of Dutch higher education. The chairman of the committee – Cees Veerman – spoke at Saxion UAS, HAN UAS and will today appear at the University of Utrecht to address the question: “Is knowledge still power?” At Utrecht UAS, the report was discussed in the context of Europe and the position of the Universities of Applied Sciences in Europe.

The future is Europe?

The University of Amsterdam takes the future of Europe as its central theme for this year's opening. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-president of the Greens/Free European Alliance Group in the European Parliament,will be keynote speaker and will explore how ‘The European Dream' has evolved over the past few decades. Also, three of its professors will consider ‘The End of Europe' through the lens of their respective disciplines (Eastern European Studies, European Law and Communication Science).

Study abroad is the future

A special mention should be given to a very exceptional opening. The Dutch students studying at universities abroad, united in NEWS (Netherlands Worldwide Students), organized their own virtual opening of the global academic year. In a virtual address, Alexander Rinnooy Kan sent them the message that the Netherlands can only survive as a knowledge economy if it excels internationally and that it needs students who are aware of the opportunities abroad.

Some other interesting speeches planned for today are:

• ‘Two Cultures’ by Pieter Winsemius (member of the Scientific Council for Government Policy) at the University of Twente. He will address the question how the natural sciences and the social sciences can reinforce each other and how university contributes to society.
• ‘How engineers can save the world’ by Rosalind Williams, Professor in Science, Technology and Society at MIT, at Eindhoven University of Technology.
• ‘Looking further ahead: Research and innovation for the long term’ by Robbert H. Dijkgraaf, President of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) at Leiden University.