Opening Academic Year Erasmus University Rotterdam

Strengthening the university’s autonomy

Erasmus University Rotterdam wants to become less dependent on government funding and to strengthen its financial autonomy. The goal is to explore new sources of revenue. This was the message given today by Pauline van der Meer Mohr, president of the Executive Board, at the opening of the Academic Year of Erasmus University. The guest speaker His Royal Highness Prince Constantijn emphasised the importance of strategic choices for universities and students. Rector magnificus Professor Henk Schmidt announced measures to combat breaches of academic integrity.

Pauline van der Meer Mohr, president of the Executive Board, referred in her address to the unpredictability of policy on higher education. She also detected a tendency in government to want to exercise more control on academic output. According to Mrs van der Meer Mohr it is time to enhance the university’s immunity to political whims. She wants to strengthen the autonomy of the university by exploring or utilising alternative funding sources. This will involve securing more European grants, recruiting more international students, raising third party funding and developing capability to commercialise knowledge.

The president of the Executive Board also spoke of the coming centenary of Erasmus University, the opening of Erasmus University College next year and the partnership between Erasmus University, the University of Technology in Delft and Leiden University.  Joint initiatives are already being developed on that front.

Excellence

Guest speaker Prince Constantijn spoke in his address of the importance of cooperation between academic institutions. Great excellence can be achieved together. European research funds are allocated on the basis of this yardstick, emphasised Prince Constantijn, who works for the Cabinet of European Commissioner Neelie Kroes. First rate academic talent in the world can also best be recruited in concert. Competition among universities and research institutes is no longer national but international, the prince observed. Internationalisation in his opinion should become a deliberate strategy on the part of universities. Prince Constantijn advised new students to get the most out of their studies and to be entrepreneurial. He believes that Europe has a need of new companies that can expand to become world players.

Integrity

Rector magnificus Professor Henk Schmidt announce a plan to combat breaches of academic integrity. This will involve a Graduate Course for researchers on integrity and ethics, storage of all research data and retrospective random sampling of the raw data repository.  Schmidt also presented the positive results of the pilot project ‘Nominal is normal’ in getting students off to a good start with their studies. At the Faculty of Social Sciences the new approach has meant that more students have passed their first year in one year than have previously passed it in two years. Students now have no backlog of subjects they still have to pass when they start their second year. Moreover higher numbers of student pass the first year. The  ‘Nominal is normal’ pilot project will be extended to practically all programmes in the coming academic year.

See for more information:

The speeches of Pauline van der Meer Mohr, Prince Constantijn and Henk Schmidt can be found on the website www.eur.nl/opening.