As an important part of our Campus NL project, our research team interviewed more than 35 persons about (the present and future of) 14 Dutch university campuses in April and May. This was an excellent opportunity to visit all NL campuses again: from Utrecht to Maastricht, from Leiden to Nijmegen. Some photos of Rotterdam (EUR), Amsterdam (VU), Groningen (RUG) and Twente (UT) can be found below.
Erasmus University Rotterdam – more attention for public space
VU Amsterdam – shared labs at new O2 building
Groningen’s ERIBA building – changing the academic workplace
University of Twente – MESA+ NanoLab
Some preliminary results of both the data collection/analysis and interviews were presented on June 3, for an audience of executive board members, financial directors and campus managers. Together they discussed propositions about tomorrow’s university and campus – the results of that meeting will be added to the Campus NL report, which will be finished in December 2016 and published as a book early 2017.
Last week our president Dirk Jan van den Berg gave a speech in Milan that created a buzz – for the 32nd Conference of Rectors and Presidents of European Universities of Technology. One of his quotes can be found below.
“I would argue that the university system in Europe is at least as determining for Europe’s future as the banking system. We too are too important to fail. So why not conduct a university campus stress test to assess the robustness of Europe’s higher education and research infrastructure. I fear the outcomes will be rather chilling and will call for an extensive overhaul of the existing facilities.”
Dirk Jan van den Berg also gave interviews (in Dutch) about the university campus stress test for newspaper De Volkskrant and for radio station BNR – 4-minute interview.
BK city’s population is back after summer – working in teams, emphasizing the importance of a physical learning environment, next to all the online learning and online communities
Dirk Jan van den Berg also stated that there will be “no clicks without bricks”, highlighting the importance of a physical place to meet, interact and work. By definition, the university is a market place for knowledge exchange. We can replace some bricks with clicks, but we can’t and won’t replace them all. Without bricks universities are footloose and will neither be rooted in cities nor add value to the regional economy. I would even defend the proposition: without bricks a university can not be world-class (like the proposition: “a relationship can not be very good, when it is only virtual”). The need to physically interact is at the basis of both – see previous blog: “Students become tourists”.
This also became obvious when a combination of TU Delft, Wageningen UR and MIT won the competition for a new Technology Institute in Amsterdam: AMS (Advanced Metropolitan Solutions, but AMS is also Amsterdam’s airport code): see press release website TU Delft. One of the first questions that journalists asked was: “Where in Amsterdam?”. Innovation very much benefits from serendipity and physical interaction between ‘academic acquantainces’, scientists that inspire each other with different perspectives on the same subject (source: research Bentinck 2013 – s.a.bentinck@tudelft.nl) – the success of thinking ‘out of the box’ also reflect this.
In the past weeks – inside our own BK city building – we experienced the importance of physical interaction (next to virtual interaction) in our own curriculum. Physical interaction leads to a higher priority in (the sometimes endless) ‘to do lists’ and to more focus when interacting: non-verbal behaviour is hard(er) to hide and the distraction that a smart phone brings, is easier to suppress when everybody notices.
It has been a very busy period – the end of the summer and the start of a brand new BSc curriculum at our faculty. Nonetheless, the energy of new students is contagious. Certainly when they have a group assignment like making a bridge, demonstrated in the 4-minute movie below. This movie not only makes you want to go back to school – in this case: our own school – it also shows our building BK city at its best.
All of the above made me very proud of my university, my faculty (department) and my colleagues. Yes, our new academic year had a very good start…
Last week in Finland gave me the opportunity to enjoy the first snow of this winter. Every campus looks beautiful covered with snow. Nonetheless, I remember how months of snow challenged all facilities staff last two winters in the Netherlands, to make sure it was “academic business as usual”.
The venue of the seminar was Aalto University’s Venture Garage (Otaniemi campus in Espoo) – see http://aaltovg.com – which also included a “startup sauna”. The topic of the seminar was Future Learning Environments and my keynote merged theory and practice (see downloads) on this subject.
I want to thank Aalto University for their hospitality, especially Suvi Nenonen and Jarkko Leinonen. Something tells me that I will be back soon…
I just returned from Barcelona, where I felt very welcome to share knowledge and experience with experts and academics. I was honoured by the presence of the Secretary of State of universities. My presentation can be found under DOWNLOADS. I attached a photo of the Spanish lecture hall from the stage, just before my lecture.
lecture hall at Barcelona's Parc Cientific
I want to thank the Spanish Secretary of State of Universities Mr. Rubiralta and DEGW for the invitation and for organising a very inspiring conference about “Social Learning Spaces” for Spanish universities. The shared knowledge strenghened both the professional and academic network.
PS My book is sold out since the day after the Spanish conference. An attendee was so kind to notify me even before the publisher did! We still have some copies left in Delft (for the same price). Anyone interested in the last copies of the first edition can send me a message (a.c.denheijer@tudelft.nl).
Author Alexandra den Heijer (professor of Public Real Estate, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft) started this blog when her book "Managing the university campus" was published in March 2011. The blog describes the process after her PhD defence (March 4, 2011): the publicity, many lectures, articles, papers, new research and visits to campuses all over the world.
Interested in joining our CAMPUS RESEARCH TEAM? See weblink for jobs: https://www.tudelft.nl/en/about-tu-delft/working-at-tu-delft/search-jobs/
Managing the university campus 