SUMMARY ANNUAL REPORT

SUMMARY 2020

The year 2020 made us reinvent ourselves across the board. The start of implementing our new Shaping2030 strategy coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of the challenges brought on by handling the pandemic, it made us pursue new collaborations, innovations and ambitions. Thanks to the total commitment of our staff, we maintained our excellent education and achieved outstanding results in our research fields. This is underpinned by the good review expressed in the ITK (Instellingstoets Kwaliteitszorg). Shaping2030 drives our preparations for the society to come, meanwhile cherishing the core values we adopted at the foundation in 1961; a civic University making societal impact. Our ambition is to contribute to the development of a fair, sustainable and digital society. Our journey is supported by Shaping Expert Groups, which connect, share knowledge, experience, and best practices on several key themes. The so called SCENARIOs project, assessing the impact of COVID-19, taught us that our strategy is pandemic proof, will keep us on track and provided recommendations for prioritization.

SHAPING SOCIETY

Shaping society combines disciplines to empower society and thus create true impact. One of the most impactful means is offering high-quality academic education. In 2020 we continued providing small-scale education at a high level, training our students to become out of the box-thinking change leaders who understand the interaction between science, technology and society. Our new master vision aims to grow in master students to strengthen our position as a research university. This, combined with the inception of an ambitious Life Long Learning plan, reinforces the synergy between education and research, contributing to more robust master programmes on one hand and delivering high qualified academic technical talent the labour market is asking for on the other hand. The start-up of the ECIU-University enforces the implementation of concepts like Life Long Learning, Challenge Based Learning and micro-credentials. Together with 12 partner universities, the UT is developing a new European university entity, a way to experiment and ultimately implement new innovative research and educational concepts. With our research, we contribute to several Sustainable Development Goals. Our publications on SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 10 (reducing inequality) and SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production) were in the top 10% of most-cited publications worldwide. Our Citizen Science Hub reduces the gap between science and society. Collaboration between researchers and citizens unlocks the scientific process and improves the application of knowledge and technology in society. Students took on an opportunity with the launch of Green Hub, a student-driven knowledge hub in sustainability for the UT and the region.

SHAPING SOCIETY

SHAPING CONNECTIONS

Shaping connections is about networks. As a campus university, we are a valuable link between science and society in the region, SHAPING in the Netherlands and the world.

CONNECTIONS

One of the most cherished networks is the alumni community: over 54.000 alumni in 173 countries, which connects us to the most innovative companies, government, and knowledge institutions. Five out of our seven student teams found a new shared home on Kennispark, which strengthens the UT and Kennispark merger. Together with the municipality of Enschede, we made big steps to come to an urban design plan to transform the Kennispark area into an innovation district, to stimulate open innovation and public-private opportunities and attract talent. Another way to connect is open science, a concept we embrace. This is reflected in an increase of 190 published datasets in 2019 to 279 in 2020. To boost the notoriety of the regional technology ecosystem with technical academic talents, we started the project Regiodeal Leonardo. This project is linked to the joint Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering with the VU Amsterdam to get students from the rim-city ‘Randstad’ acquainted with the exciting job opportunities in the Twente region. This year, the collaboration within the VSNU, Association of Universities in the Netherlands, mainly

focused on COVID-19 related issues. We are always looking for opportunities to enhance our partnerships with industry, for example by Industrial Doctorate programs. To anticipate on educational needs of professionals in the field of safety and digitalization, we further developed the cooperation with the municipality of Apeldoorn and several other parties. On the international level, our ECIU-network is of increasing importance since we started creating a European university. Finally, we work closely with our four International Strategic Partners and selected countries on specific research and education domains.

SHAPING INDIVIDUALS

Shaping individuals is about putting people first and contributing to a digital, fair, and sustainable society. People first means providing a safe and inspiring work and study environment for our staff and students and empowering individuals and organizations in society. To offer prospective students the possibility to get acquainted, we organized a DriveUThrough, safari-style campus tour and digital open days. The influx of students increased, probably due to COVID-19; a gap year was not a tempting perspective. Besides a top-notch education, we stimulate students to develop themselves in a broader sense through student activism. This really sets the University of Twente aside from other Dutch universities. The base of our organization consists of professionals who add value, who are intrinsically motivated and move flexibly with the continuously changing environment. As a small university in the periphery of The Netherlands, it is a challenge to attract talented staff. One of the measures we took is the dual career program, supporting partners of newly appointed UT-staff to find a job in or outside the academia. To realize the target figure of 25% of female professors in 2025, we started a new Hypatia campaign. Overall, the number of employees increased by almost 300, mainly appointed on the Sector plans. Once at the UT, we invest in sustainable employability through health and wellbeing programs and talent development. Our ambition is to become known as the university where all individuals and teams will blossom. Focus in academia is mostly more on research than education. We recognized extraordinary educational talent by rewarding the first educational professorship to Justine Blanford. An essential precondition for a safe and inspiring environment is integrity. To start and facilitate discussion about scientific integrity, we organized the performance Mindlab. Over 560 employees visited the theatre performances and shared and discussed their experiences afterwards.

SHAPING INDIVIDUALS

FINANCE

The university concluded 2020 with a consolidated surplus of M €2.0. Related to the budget, the surplus is mainly the result of more income from subsidies and valorisation and lower personnel and other costs. The positive result of 2020 has been added to the reserves, and will be used for investments in education, research and talent development in the coming years, in line with our strategy Shaping2030 and the Sector plans on Education and Research.

COVID

The COVID-19 pandemic shook up 2020. One thing became vividly clear: our employees and students are resilient. In only one week, the whole curriculum was online. New collaborations were started to find solutions for the medical challenges by the COVID-19 virus. And we discovered new opportunities in online work and education. The TNW faculty, for example, distributed ‘lab kits’ to students to continue their studies at home. Because students were called upon their creativity, they became more confident in their research skills and the designs were even better than those in the original setup. UT scientists from science, engineering and social sciences contributed to solutions for health care and new insights in spreading of COVID-19 virus. In addition, Novel-T offered specific COVID-19 support to regional companies and industry. In March, a solid crisis organization was organized to deal with all the questions the pandemic confronted us. The Corona Crisis Team (CCT) oversaw the overall perspective and steered multiple subgroups in order to be able to act fast. The last year showed that true to our new Shaping2030 strategy, the UT can and will have an impact on society, even under challenging circumstances.