“Last week, I received MPs Laurens Dassen (VOLT), Claudia van Zanten (BBB) and Femke Zeedijk (NSC), together with Peter van Tienderen, dean of UvA's Faculty of Science. We had also invited students from our universities. The approach of the visit was to inform the MPs more about the importance of our STEM education and research.”
The importance of STEM
“There are obviously big challenges ahead for us and other universities. What we want to highlight is how important STEM research is for the innovation engine of the Netherlands. And how internationally we operate.”
“Because we are part of general universities, I emphasised that solutions should not only come from STEM, but that it is important to combine that with our knowledge and expertise from alpha and gamma sciences. Language also plays an important role in solutions, but also knowledge on whether and how people are going to accept technical solutions.”
Students have their say
“In the morning, the focus was on education. There were students from the UvA and VU, who were asked all kinds of questions by the MPs. For example, about why you would study Mechanical Engineering in Amsterdam at VU. The simple answer was: it’s nearby. Those kinds of answers were eye openers for the MPs. Apparently, students also choose a city, not just the content of the study.”
English language in education and research
“In politics, English in academic education is often discussed. How important is English? Those students could exactly explain why. Study material in the STEM field is often in English. The students also said they wanted to prepare themselves in the Bachelor's for the step to Master's, which is generally in English. And our field of work is also in an English-speaking environment. The MPs acknowledged that the English language is important for STEM programmes. In the new ‘Wet Internationalisering in balans’ (‘Balanced Internationalisation Act’), which more or less stipulates that Dutch is the language of instruction for undergraduate programmes, engineering is named as an exception, but STEM is not. I stressed its importance for STEM studies during the visit.”
“All in all, it was a very positive visit. The initiative for this working visit came from the Faculy if Science deans of Dutch universities. We had concluded that with everything that is coming our way, we need to make more noise as science faculties. The House of Representatives is now full of new MPs. We organsied this visit to explain to them that we’re not working from an ivory tower at the university, but that we teach and do research in the STEM field, where our ambition is to help solve societal issues. We conveyed that importance during their visit.”