News

In January, the 3TU.Federation submitted its Final Report on the Technology Sector Plan to the Ministry of Education, Cultural Affairs and Science (OCW). Over the past five years, many issues have been addressed, and above all there has been significant improvement. The Bachelor’s intake has grown by more than 30% and all three technical universities have made major reforms to their Bachelor’s programmes. Students are earning more credits each year, the drop-out rate has been brought back to an acceptable level and our degree programmes are extremely popular internationally.

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a number of 13 grants in the 2015 ERC Starting Grant competition to excellent researchers of the three Dutch technical universities. The granted researchers received grants, worth up to €1.5 million each, to support promising researchers  and in order to help them build their own teams. The Starting Grants are have been awarded to Andrea Caviglia (Delft University of Technology), Tom de Greef (Eindhoven University of Technology), Simon Gröblacher (Delft), Arjan Houtepen (Delft), Rudie Kunnen (Eindhoven), Alvaro Marin (University of Twente),  Sander Otte (Delft), Jantien Stoter (Delft), Ivo Vellekoop (Twente), Miren Vizcaino (Delft), Stephanie Wehner (Delft), Hyun Youk (Delft), Amir A. Zadpoor (Delft). Furthermore, three ERC Consolidator Grants have been awarded to TU Delft researchers, as part of the ERC 2015 Consolidator Grant competition. With grants worth up to €2 million each, these excellent mid-career scientists will be able to consolidate their research teams and to develop their innovative ideas.  The ERC's mission is to encourage the highest quality research in Europe through competitive funding and to support investigator-driven frontier research across all fields, on the basis of scientific excellence. ERC has three core funding schemes: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants and Proof of Concept. Funding schemes are open to top researchers of any nationality or age who wish to carry out their frontier research.

On Monday 15 February, the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Jet Bussemaker, paid a working visit to ASML. Discussions were held with representatives of the 3TU.Federation on the importance of a continuous influx of highly-qualified technicians such as those educated at the three universities of technology. ASML indicated that the level of the graduates in the Netherlands matched the needs of the company, but added that there are too few students in the Netherlands graduating in subjects such as electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and computer science. And software engineering is the greatest sticking point. 

From 16–19 November 2015, 130,000 specialist visitors from 120 nations came to Düsseldorf to visit the MEDICA. For the first time, the complete spectrum of innovations for out-patient and clinical care were offered by almost 5,000 exhibitors from 70 nations to experts from hospitals, practices, laboratories, the retail sector as well as from industrial ranks and cost bearers.

The Solar Teams of TU Delft, TU Eindhoven and Twente University have proved that the Netherlands is among the best in the world in the field of solar cars.

Mark van Swam (TU/e) is the winner of the 3TU Construction Management and Engineering Master’s Thesis award 2014-2015. On the 3TU CME kick-off day at the University of Twente, UT Programme Director dr.ir. C.M. Dohmen-Janssen awarded him with a cheque to the value of €1000,- .

On 1 September 2015, Victor van der Chijs, President of the Executive Board of the University of Twente, will take over the chairmanship of the federation of the three universities of technology. His colleague Dirk Jan van den Berg announced his departure from TU Delft this summer.

MNE 2015 is the 41st international conference on micro- and nanofabrication and manufacturing using lithography and related techniques. The conference brings together engineers and scientists from all over the world to discuss recent progress and future trends in the fabrication and application of micro- and nanostructures and devices. Applications in electronics, photonics, electromechanics, environment, life sciences and biology are also discussed.

As a contribution to the Dutch Research Agenda, the three Dutch universities of technology (TU Delft, TU Eindhoven, University of Twente), together with Wageningen UR, TNO and STW, have put together a collection of ten essays, each of which describes a different innovation task for the Netherlands. Today this collection was presented to Alexander Rinnooy Kan, co-chair of the Dutch Science Agenda, during the Innovation & Technology Conference of the 3TU.Federation in Rotterdam. During the presentation the six organisations were represented by Dirk Jan van den Berg (President of the Executive Board, TUD), Jan Mengelers (President of the Executive Board, TU/e), Victor van der Chijs (President of the Executive Board, UT), Raoul Bino (General Director of AFSG, Wageningen UR), Wim Nagtegaal (COO, Member of the Board of Management, TNO) and Eppo Bruins (General Director, STW).

In September 2015, TU Delft and the University of Twente will start the new joint master's specialization Cyber Security. The two-year master's degree is open to students with a bachelor's degree in computer science or a related degree programme. 

The second 3TU.Innovation & Technology Conference will take place on 18 May in the World Trade Centre in Rotterdam. The theme of this conference is “Inspirations for the Dutch Research Agenda 2025”.

Many alumni of Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology and University of Twente work in the United States. These universities recently began setting up joint local alumni chapters in places such as Boston, New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Houston. With over 3,000 members in the US, the network of these Dutch alumni is very impressive.

Chinese Fangyi Shi from the Technological Designer's programme Software Technology was officially honoured on Wednesday 1 October by Rector Magnificus Hans van Duijn of TU/e (Eindhoven University of Technology). She is the 3,500th recipient of the Professional Doctorate in Engineering (PDEng) degree at one of the three universities of technology in the Netherlands since its introduction in 1986. Van Duijn pointed out that the program has accounted for a € 350 million investment in innovation over a 30-year period.

On 25 September 2014, Research Data Netherlands (RDNL), the collaborative partnership between 3TU.Datacentrum and DANS, welcomed SURFsara. The arrival of this new partner will enable RDNL to assist more academic institutions in the sustainable storage and sharing of research data through a collective approach.

The Dutch Data Prize for 2014 has been awarded to the Nederlandse Liederenbank (Dutch Song Database) in the category of Humanities & Social Sciences and to DINED in the category of Exact & Technical Sciences. The awards were presented yesterday by professors Karel Luyben (TU Delft) and Kees Aarts (University of Twente).