They took their time with this, President Martin Paul explains. “We pondered long on this statement: the European university of the Netherlands. It is easy to shout something, but you have to be able to substantiate it. We can: we have European education programmes, 90 per cent of our foreign students and 40 per cent of our researchers are from Europe. We do a lot of European research, we have a campus in Brussels, we are the initiators and chair of the European university Yufe (Young Universities for the Future of Europe) and we have the Maastricht, working on Europe programme.”
Network university
The UM may be calling itself the European network university, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t do business with the rest of the world. Students and researchers from other parts of the world are very welcome and there is collaboration with partners from the Global South, for example; this includes parts of Asia, the Middle East, Central America, Africa. “A European university with a global orientation,” says the strategic plan. “The UM is a unique hub, a living lab, and an expertise centre for Europe around the question: what does Europe mean to the world, and what does the world mean to Europe?” At the same time, the focus on the Euroregion remains important.
All of thirteen pages
The thirteen-page document states where the UM wants to be in 2026. The details will follow in separate memos. Some have already been completed: Recognition and Appreciation, a memo on internationalisation, and Sustainable UM 2030. Others are still being drawn up. If necessary, these will be adapted to the current state of affairs in the coming years. Paul: “It is a living document. Developments in higher education take place at a high pace and are unpredictable. Who would have thought five years ago that there would be quality agreements, or the Einstein telescope?”
Resilient
What is striking in the strategic plan is the importance attached to well-being, security, involvement and careers of employees and students. They form a community that has recently shown – first with the cyber-crisis and subsequently with the COVID-19 pandemic – that it is “resilient, involved and professional. “We must make the effort to keep it that way,” says Paul. To achieve this an open, safe culture in which people treat each other with respect, is a must. At the same time, employees and students – from all corners of the world and highly diverse – must be given the chance to develop academically and professionally as well as personally. Examples include the Recognition and Rewards project (employees), but also the 21st-century skills that contribute towards students developing into “active, globally oriented citizens”.
PBL and technology
The UM continues to embrace problem-based learning. That constitutes the basis, the plan states, but this will be, more so than before, enhanced with all kinds of technologies. The first steps towards this were made during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Science+
The expansion of the sciences (Faculty of Science and Engineering) will take priority in the coming years. But always in combination and balanced with other UM disciplines and faculties and with due respect for social issues: the so-called Science+. As befits a network university, Maastricht scientists will collaborate on this with national and international parties.
Four research themes
Until now, three research themes were focal points in Maastricht: Quality of Life, Learning and Innovation in Europe, and a Globalising World. A fourth has been added now: Sustainability and Circularity. “Circularity focuses on the cycles of raw materials, while sustainability has a broader bearing on people, environment and prosperity. The theme fits in seamlessly with our social responsibility towards our community and the planet by promoting sustainable development and wider prosperity,” says the plan. The study programme and research in the field of Circular Engineering is a first example of this.
Farewell
The new strategic plan 2022-2026 is a kind of farewell gift from President Martin Paul, who is to become rector/chairman of the Ruhr Universität in Bochum as of 1 November. “We worked on this with a lot of people, the input came from across the UM and from external experts. I mainly had the role of a kind of moderator.” He is happy with the result: “You have to show who you are in the context of the Dutch university system, this is important, certainly when you look at the national discussion on internationalisation and the language used in higher education.”