Profile and Identity
Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ's ambition is to contribute to a better world through high-quality education and research. The social challenges we face can only be solved by working together. Thanks to the wide range of disciplines that Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ has at its disposal, it is ideally equipped to initiate necessary transformations. We have a solid, essential disciplinary foundations, based upon which people can connect across disciplinary boundaries. Our students and alumni are well-equipped to contribute to a rapidly changing society that is also under threat in a variety of ways.
Through our close ties and productive cooperation with other local, national and international knowledge institutions, community partners, governments and private parties, we merge knowledge from academia and practice in order to arrive together at even better, workable approaches or solutions. In doing so, we welcome international education and research talent, which is and will continue to be of great importance by bringing in different perspectives and expertise.
Profile
Our profile is defined by four major strategic themes. Our ambition is to be recognised and acknowledged in the field of these themes and, within this, to be responsive to external developments and societal issues that require solutions.
Dynamics of Youth focuses on how to support children, adolescents and young adults in their development into resilient and engaged adults in a rapidly changing world full of both uncertainties and opportunities. After all, investing in their well-being and future is an investment in the inclusive and just society of tomorrow.
Institutions for Open Societies focuses on examining the contribution of institutions and formal/informal rules to sustainable prosperity, equality and democracy and thus to an open and resilient society.
Life Sciences focuses on the search for innovations in sustainable, human, veterinary and plant health and resilience, aiming to create a healthy world for future generations.
Pathways to Sustainability focuses on research into how systems in our society can be transformed for greater sustainability, and thereby contribute to a better world.
Through these themes, we are working towards solutions for the major social issues of our time. The themes permeate our education and research and facilitate collaboration across disciplinary boundaries. Researchers from multiple faculties participate in each theme. Our cooperation across subject and sector boundaries is enhanced by our partnership in the EWUU alliance with UMC Utrecht, Wageningen ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ & Research and Eindhoven ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ of Technology. Closer to home, at Utrecht Science Park and in the city and region, we have also developed a strong ecosystem for knowledge development and exchange.
Identity
Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ stands out not only for its content profile but also, and perhaps especially, for the way we work. The collaboration, connections and powerful communities within the university strengthen us in everything we do. We seek each other out, inspire each other and pay attention to each other. We collaborate across boundaries of organisational units and disciplines and with external partners and alumni.
In doing so, we look for opportunities to co-create, strengthen each other and learn from each other. A culture of equality, diversity and inclusion is important to us, as are social safety and the well-being of staff and students. We offer an inclusive and stimulating work and study environment and continue to develop in this respect.
As Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ, we believe that scientific knowledge should not remain within the university, but should translate to society. We therefore ensure meaningful interaction with the city and the region and actively seek connection with governments, community organisations, entrepreneurial networks and less organised entities such as citizens, neighbourhood residents or young people for this purpose. By linking the knowledge we develop to regional societal challenges, we increase our impact in the society we are part of. Our partnerships enable us to set up research and education projects with high social relevance.
Education
Our academic staff are active in both education and research. Our education is therefore fuelled by research and helps our students develop a solid academic foundation. The world is changing and so should our education, which is innovative, flexible and future-proof. We invest in innovative educational concepts, and in recent years we have worked to broaden our Continuing Education offerings. Alumni are explicitly involved in these developments. We embrace Open Education. This part of Open Science focuses on developing and delivering open, accessible education, in consultation with community stakeholders.
Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ is internationally renowned for its high-quality education, among other things. Over the past period, we have recalibrated the Utrecht education model. This model is based on our educational vision and includes both the profile of our graduates and the structure and characteristics of our education. The model will guide innovations in and adjustments to education in the coming years.
Based on our educational vision, we have described graduate attributes that give value-driven direction to the knowledge and skills with which we want to equip our students during their studies. In addition to the important qualifying function of academic knowledge and skills, we also attach great importance to personal development and socialisation as goals of academic education. We offer students a lot of freedom of choice to develop themselves broadly, across disciplines, in contact with community stakeholders and with an international orientation. At the same time, we support our students in preparing well for the job market. Our education is geared towards an inclusive and stimulating study environment. For our students, the city and Science Park campuses, the cultural offerings and the wide range of student societies and student organisations make an important contribution to a rich study and learning environment and an unforgettable study career.
Our university is proud of its broad and active teaching community and has a long tradition of valuing education and providing space for both education and teacher development. This is also reflected in our staff policy, which is partly inspired by the principles of Recognition and Rewards, one of the themes in Open Science. It concerns our way of working, which focuses on team spirit, cooperation, development and personal leadership. Recognition and rewards can translate into a career step, for example on the basis of results in education, but often it is also about space for employees to develop themselves professionally and personally. The guiding principle in our view of the community is that everyone's contribution counts: after all, we are all working together to realise Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ's mission and ambitions.
Research
Our education is informed by our research, which has a high-quality fundamental and disciplinary foundation. Our interdisciplinary work is based upon this. By aligning and uniting different disciplinary perspectives, we achieve a broader understanding of a topic or issue (multidisciplinarity). Ideally, we prefer to go a little further by integrating different perspectives to make even better sense of complex issues (interdisciplinarity). Moreover, through collaboration and co-creation with community partners, we enrich our research with knowledge and experiences gained from practice (transdisciplinarity). Research groups and individual researchers collaborate internationally, and Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ is an active member of leading European knowledge networks such as the League of European Research Universities (LERU) and the Coimbra Group.
The university is open, reliable and integrated into society. This is underpinned by the Open Science values, in which we are nationally and internationally recognised frontrunners. Research results become accessible to the general public through Open Science. Sharing scientific information through open access, FAIR data and software, and public engagement, are increasingly commonplace in this regard. We stand for an open academic culture that promotes accountability, reproducibility, integrity and transparency. Collaboration with community partners makes our research more relevant and helps to align our education with our students’ future work environment.
Impact
Realising social impact is core to our mission as a university; we create value for society. We often do this in collaboration and co-creation with our community partners. The value can be financially-economically oriented, but is usually richer and broader than that. The results of our research contribute directly or indirectly to positive changes in society – locally, nationally and elsewhere in the world. We gain profound insights, impart knowledge, make discoveries and create inventions, and help shape transformative developments in society. We also contribute to economic development not only in the region, but also more broadly to the earning power of the Netherlands. We achieve the greatest impact by educating and training young people from the undergraduate to the PhD stage. They are the critical global citizens and future policymakers, innovators and administrators who will help shape the world of tomorrow.