There remains much work to be done before the UT achieves top status internationally on all fronts, according to the draft plans submitted last week to the University Council. One item that will change drastically is the Bachelor's education: 50 to 75 percent of the existing courses will be scrapped and replaced with broader courses for larger groups of students. However, students within the broad Bachelor's programs will be able to follow differentiated learning tracks, even including an honors track for excellent students. This Bachelor's education reform at the UT, like the one already in progress at the faculties of Science and Technology and Business and Technology, should be realized `by May 2005 or May 2006 at the latest;' they result in a significant efficiency boost. At the same time, tutoring will be intensified and a binding course of study program introduced.
The broad Bachelor's programs will give access to a `wide range of Master's programs, both inside and outside the UT.' Apart from normal Master's programs, the UT will introduce a limited number of top Master's programs, including shortened PhD programs, that correspond to the focus of UT research. These exclusive programs will also get an exclusive price tag.
In the long term, all Master's programs will be consolidated in the graduate schools of the three technical universities. But, in preparation for that, the UT is founding its own graduate school, in order to achieve the desired organizational separation from the undergraduate programs.
The UT, in cooperation with the two other technical universities, wants to get a place in the `absolute European top' with its research fields. `In some areas, such as nanotechnology, we are already at the top. In other areas, we can make it to the top with highly focused efforts.' But, as the draft plans unequivocally state, there are also areas where such a position can `simply never be achieved.' That means reducing certain research groups in size, in favor of investing in high-potential departments.
The amount of UT research done by institutes will also have to be reduced drastically. The remaining research institutes will be better protected, embedded in the financial distribution model. A group has been formed to examine proposals, `preferably before mid-2005.'
Another spearhead in the UT strategy for the coming years is knowledge valorization: converting knowledge into activity, stimulating entrepreneurship with staff and students, and creating a knowledge park on campus (see the article on this in last week's edition).
One of the points that will get more attention from the internal research evaluation is cooperation between technical and non-technical research groups. Because the UT particularly wants to present itself as a technical university (see the mission statement), the Social and Behavioral Sciences are expected to exhibit a `strong technical orientation.' Once those sciences focus more on the implications of technological renewal and the further development of the knowledge society, this will lead to a `univocal and distinguishing research profile' and better chances of success for UT research in Europe.
Trans. Jeroen Latour
