The universities of Delft, Eindhoven and Twente intend to form a federation of technological universities in 2010, which will be among the absolute best in Europe in the areas of education and research. By producing highly trained engineers and by generating innovations, this federation will boost the dynamics and the competitive position of the Dutch knowledge economy.
That is the message of the Technology Sector Plan draft, which will be published in early March. This week, the University Council will review the report. The drafters call the Plan “an historic and momentous step in the development of Dutch higher education” and claim that with this ambitious goal they are going much further than the assignment of Assistant Secretary of Education Nijs, which entailed agreeing upon a national division of tasks, creating a functional array of Master's programs, broadening Bachelor's programs, and developing international cooperation.
The current plan eliminates the vague and noncommittal tones of previous versions. External expert panels will be formed to check the soundness of the results of implementation and operation; advisory bodies will be formed if they do not already exist; and, the federation will get one supervisory board. A new concept is the “social stakeholder,” a kind of a stockholder with an advisory role in the areas of education, research and knowledge valorization.
There will be no merger per se, but a federation. In the scope of this federation, the three universities will cooperate in the areas of education, research and knowledge valorization, and they will present themselves in foreign countries as one entity. However, in that entity they will preserve their own autonomy. The feared tensions thus far have been averted; the technological universities insist they can reorganize themselves, from the bottom up, with a range of measures that enable the federation to excel.
The final plan addresses criticism from Eindhoven and Delft: education and research are again interwoven, and the level of bureaucracy appears to have been adjusted. The plan contains a few new perspectives relative to the May and November drafts. A new addition is the three universities' Innovation Lab, which will have a leading role in the Netherlands in the areas of knowledge transfer and valorization, science parks and starter programs, as well as a well-founded patent policy.
Responding explicitly to concerns expressed by the universities of Delft and Eindhoven, there will be no extra executive level to manage implementation. That process will be handled internally at the universities, using small units led by a senior manager. The chairmen of the three Executive Boards have assigned themselves the role of directing the implementation of the plans and assuming the authority to make executive decisions if progress or results fall short. Executive Board members, who are responsible for research and knowledge valorization, will organize the fine-tuning process that will be “specified from the bottom up at the level of deans and scientific directors.” They will be assisted in that task by small organizational units to be recruited from existing staff formations and led by a senior manager.
Trans. Jeroen Latour
