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Dedication and flexibility

“With her visit, the Minister shows her appreciation for the tremendous dedication and flexibility with which staff and students at TU/e have worked to limit the impact of the Corona crisis on education and research”, said Robert-Jan Smits, Chairman of the Executive Board of TU/e, about the Minister’s field trip to Eindhoven.

Talent

An important topic of the visit was ‘challenge based learning’, in which students from different disciplines work together in teams on real world problems. This crucial study element has now been redesigned so that it can take place online.

The minister said she finds it impressive to see how students work together to come up with “real solutions to real issues”.

During her visit, the Minister also spoke to three recent laureates: Professor Jan van Hest, who recently won a Spinoza Prize, Professor Isabelle Reymen, who recently received a Comenius grant to further develop Challenge Based Learning, and teacher Johanna Höffken. She recently won the ISO Teacher of the Year Award, and gave a presentation. After that presentation, the minister presented Höffken with the trophy belonging to the ISO Prize, saying: “I understand why you were chosen Teacher of the Year”.

Furthermore, one of the most important developments in science and society was on the agenda today, artificial intelligence (AI). Carlo van de Weijer and Wim Nuijten of the Eindhoven Artificial Intelligence Systems Institute (EAISI) discussed, among other things, the opportunities that AI offers in combating COVID-19 and the consequences of the pandemic.

Collaboration

The visit was initiated by the Minister himself, partly inspired by the strong degree of cooperation between the university within the region and with other knowledge institutions. Several examples were on the agenda of the visit.

Four young top talents from the Young Academies of the universities of Eindhoven, Wageningen, Utrecht and the UMCU updated the minister on their joint, multidisciplinary research. This in the context of the alliance between the four institutions, which was recently launched.

“With these institutions you really have everything combined,” the minister said after the presentation. “The idea in my strategic agenda is: create strong ecosystems and connect them. That’s exactly what this cooperation does.”

Furthermore, the chairmen of Fontys University of Applied Sciences and the TU/e signed a cooperation covenant, in the presence of the Minister. The TU/e and the Fontys technical study programs are already together on the TU/e campus, now the institutions will also coordinate and optimize recruitment and the flow between them. The aim is to offer students the best possible education, with a minimum loss of STEM-talent, and to provide the Brainport Region Eindhoven with the highly educated engineers that are so badly needed.

Chairman of the TU/e board Robert-Jan Smits emphasized to the Minister the importance and strength of the cooperation in Brainport. Concrete examples of this were given in the program: the collaboration with Fontys and industry in hybrid lecturers, and the regional joining of forces in the field of AI.

Resilience

One of the most pressing issues in the past month and the coming year is the need for rapid expansion of online education. The TU/e is continuously developing this and will continue to do so in the coming academic year. Another point that became even more urgent last year was digital security. The university has stepped up its efforts to keep cybercriminals out. Both online education and digital security were discussed with the minister.