On the 1st of April the 3TU-Education Day took place. A strategic day about the relevance and cooperation amongst the 3TU master Education Tracks, Science & Education and Communication, Systems & Control, Construction Management Engineering, Embedded Systems and Sustainable Energy and Technology. As the original purpose of the joint 3TU education, macro efficiency and joint degree, has become less relevant today, the scope and relevance of the 3TU label has been discussed amongst Educational Track Directors and the 3TU Executive Board and members of the 3TU Centre of Engineering Education board.
The emerging visions for the future are a Focus on the Quality of Education; Create the best possible education with the best possible content by exchanging best-practices, benchmarking educational programmes, cross-referencing master thesis work and co-researching important topics.
Paradoxically, the future requires a strong focus on community building and flexibility. Community building is calling for institutional identity and “couleur locale” Versus a strong drive towards flexible learning paths for students. Community is both feeling a part of one institution and feeling part of the wider 3TU community. Creating a network learning organisation at 3TU level should broaden the local culture and being a part of a single institutions culture. Flexible learning paths require a rich pallet of relevant courses in joint fields of expertise, such that students may capture the pieces of pizza they need to build their expertise. Co-creation and differentiation should therefore go hand in hand at programme and course level and content focus. This is ideally realised via online and blended learning. Capacity intake and sharing may be one of the consequences coming along with this future scenario.
Finally, the 3TU clearly has been realised to avoid single points of failure in our Dutch Higher Education System. We should be proud of what we have as individual institution and as 3TU label. Branding and using the 3TU in external communications can potentially be realised more efficiently and effectively than at present, looking at the TU9 in Germany there is a world to be gained by a strong position of the 3TU Label in Europe and beyond.