Pauline van der Meer Mohr

There appears to be a wide gap between the flowery rhetoric in the so-called Troonrede (the state of the union address  at the opening of the parliamentary year) and the budget presented yesterday by the government on the occasion of Prinsjesdag.  Despite words indicating that our country aspires to be among the top innovative and [...]

I read a couple of fascinating articles in today’s Financieele Dagblad. The first concerned a $75mln donation to Oxford University to start a school of government modelled after the Kennedy school in the US. This kind of philantropy really makes a difference. The second article described a startup company, De Kleine Consultant (“the small consultant”), [...]

Our Campus development masterplan (phases 1a and b) was approved by the board of trustees yesterday. This means that we will invest approx 63 mln euros in the coming years in renovating, refreshing and expanding our campus. As soon as the entire decision process has been completed (following the University Council) we will start breaking ground to [...]

My colleagues in the UK are buckling up for a bumpy ride in the coming years. Higher education in the UK should plan for cuts of up to 35 % to its public funding, if the Cabinet secretary is right. Assuming student numbers remain static, this means that the level of per capita funding of [...]

I have had some skeptical feedback on my comments during the opening address about the growing importance of e-learning. I thought it might be helpful to add a link to the following excerpt from techradar.com: “Bill Gates has outlined his predictions for education in the next five years, believing that universities will become less important [...]

At the monthly meeting of the executive board and deans today, we discussed and approved the new sustainability policy related to real estate. Another step forward on our journey to become one of the most sustainable university campuses in The Netherlands. The comprehensive policy covers such matters as energy, the environment, waste management, water usage, [...]