In order to create this new strategy, a project organisation was set up with a steering group and a project team. The detailed strategy will be ready by the end of 2025, and can then be shared publicly. Background information, news and updates on this project will be shared via the dedicated page. You can also use this page to contact us if you have any questions or ideas.
The first steps have been taken
The project team started by analysing the relevant internal and external developments. For this purpose, they are gathering information within and outside of the organisation and using it together with the existing research and policies as input for the new strategy. Once the new President of the Executive Board, Alexandra van Huffelen, has taken up her post on 1 February, the continued process will be developed in more detail with the Executive Board. The wider university community will subsequently become involved in several different ways.
Underlying principles and components
Rather than starting from scratch, the discussion about the new strategy will build on the structure of the current strategy, A Significant Impact. However, the world is evolving rapidly, allowing strategic themes to change or be added. Digitalisation, for example, is a theme of increasing strategic importance.
Our mission, core values and identity, will form the foundation for the new strategy. Its interpretation and approach will be shaped on the basis of insights about internal and external developments. The feasibility of the strategy will be explicitly taken into account; it needs to be specific enough to provide clarity at both university and faculty level about the approach and the choices that we are making together. In that context, extra attention will also be dedicated to monitoring the new strategy.
In the next few years, a well-defined vision and clear choices will be essential. In the changing national and international context, which is coupled with substantial cutbacks and declining student numbers, it is vital that our university’s position is clear and that it presents itself clearly. In one respect, this will force us to focus more outwardly. But internally, there will also be a need for better frameworks, especially given the growing importance of process harmonisation and inter-faculty coordination. Proper positioning and profiling will provide an essential basis for new policy choices.