School:University of Twente
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Contents
- 1 Campus Overview
- 1.1 Promoting student innovation and entrepreneurship
- 1.2 Encouraging faculty innovation and entrepreneurship
- 1.3 Actively supporting the university technology transfer function
- 1.4 Facilitating university-industry collaboration
- 1.5 Engaging with regional and local economic development efforts
- 1.6 Business and startup competitions
- 1.7 Internship, co-op opportunity or business plan projects with external partners.
- 2 Related links
Campus Overview
The University of Twente is located in Europe in the city Enschede, The Netherlands. Founded in 1961 it now holds an approximate of 11.000 students. Originating as a technical university its motto “High Tech, Human Touch” describes how the university connects cutting edge technologies with society.
The university is located in Twente, the most entrepreneurial region of the Netherlands, with approximately 140 new start-ups in the region every year. With a Science and Business park across the road and lots of I&E resources, the University of Twente has a lot to offer to those willing to create a business.
In the past couple of years the University of Twente already went through some educational changes in favor of innovation and entrepreneurship. Its new Twents Education Model (T.E.M.) revolves around a multidisciplinary, project-based approach. One of the big strengths of the university is its student-driven activism, where student-driven organizations organize and arrange all sorts of things for their fellow students.
The University of Twente is part of the University Innovations Fellows program since Fall 2016. It is the first university in the Netherlands and Europe participating in the program.
Here is our story:
Promoting student innovation and entrepreneurship
The University of Twente provides everything a student may desire to pursue innovation and entrepreneurship. Starting with their first steps on campus, the students come into contact with the vibrant activities off and on campus.
- Kick-In: Each year all freshman students kick off their academic career with a week full of activities to discover the university, the associations, the students, and the city. There is a Facility market during the Kick-In, where all student and study associations are represented.
- Student-associations: At the university, a wide variety of student-driven associations can be found. Study associations facilitate ordering books, excursions to companies, represent students throughout the university, and provide a platform for students of similar studies to meet. You can play the sport you love to play at one of the sport associations, practice your musical and cultural hobbies at one of the culture associations, or join a student association. In total there are over 100 different associations off and on campus that are active in various different ways to make a more complete study life. All associations are run by students and provide the possibility to partake in boards and committees. As such, they provided a great learning experience in organizing events and running organizations.
- Student Union: Student union is a student-led organization, which "promotes the academic development and well-being of students of the University of Twente". Student Union also makes monthly mailing about student opportunities and events. This is an umbrella organization for all associations at the University of Twente. The Student Union also runs the 'More than a Degree' campaign which encourages students to develop.
- Student teams: At the moment there are seven student teams at the university partaking in international competitions. The student teams focus on building vehicles driven by alternative energy sources, robotics, drones, etc. DroneTeam works on developing autonomous aid delivery drones and compete at UAS Challenge in UK. RoboTeam use Robotics and Artificial Interlligence to create the best soccer team in the world. In July every year they compete in RoboCupThailand. GreenTeam is a multidisciplinary team which work on designing , building and racing one of the world’s most fuel-efficient hydrogen car. Solar Boat Team encourages environmental awareness by applying renewable energy in the maritime sector. The students of Solar Team Twente develop a new solar car from scratch within only one year. This car is designed to drive more than 3.000 kilometers by only using solar energy. Electric Superbike Twente is a student racing team designing and building a fully electric motorcycle from scratch. ESport team brings gaming to the next level by combining research and engineering of multiple disciplines with the aim of improving esports performance.
- Start-up and entrepreneurship events: Such as the three day StartupLaunch weekend [18.09.2022 offline], the International Start-up Challenge, the two day Create Tomorrow case studies, the UT challenge, and the EntrepreneurialU are organized each year on the campus of the university.
- DesignLab: Science2design4society, the DesignLab provides a creative ecosystem for connecting science to society. In this space students from all fields of study work together to create all the crazy ideas they have!
- Summer Schools: Each year they organize two very interesting events, the CuriousU summer school, and the PreU promoting innovation and entrepreneurship among high school students. This makes students interested in the UT aware of the highly innovation-driven mindset of the current students.
- Week of Inspiration: As a yearly event, the Week of Inspiration is organized by students and is meant to broaden the knowledge areas of students. Many lectures relate to real-world problems that fuel the innovative mindset of UT students.
- The Business Days Twente: Offers a vast variety of activities that give students the chance to come into contact with companies. Amongst workshops and an ambition week, they organise a yearly two day long Career Fair, that allows students to talk to company representatives about their interests, internships and job opportunities.
- TEDx and Studium Generale: Offer discussion and workshop platforms with a high variety of topics for students and other interested parties. Often, expert speakers are involved in the guest lectures.
- The Young Academy: YA@UT supports its members in their development as an educator, scientist and entrepreneur within and extraneous of their own fields of activities.
- Negotiation project Twente: The Negotiation Project Twente (NPT) is a foundation which uniquely educates higher-level students and industry professionals about the tenets of negotiation.
- U-Today: U-Today is the journalism-independent news medium of the University of Twente and focuses on news, backgrounds and opinions within the UT and its surroundings. Helps to promote student initiatives.
Encouraging faculty innovation and entrepreneurship
Research at the University of Twente aims to have both a social and an economic impact. With research departments focused on nanotechnology, ICT, biomedical technology, technical medicine, governance & behavioral sciences, engineering, geo-information sciences, and earth observation, the knowledge generated is of technical background and is also impactful for society. All summarized in its motto:
- ‘High Tech-Human Touch’
- ‘High Tech-Human Touch’
Connecting the research involving cutting edge high tech on campus with the (current) problems of society.
The UT has many research departments that represent faculty making strides in the area of innovation and entrepreneurship, on both a student level and research level.
Details about faculty I&E at the UT:
- 1,500 researchers work on a daily basis on relevant societal challenges in a large variety of disciplines
- Deliver over 2,400 publications a year, providing valuable input for scientific excellence and laying the foundations for knowledge-based spin-offs such as DEMCON and SciSports.
- Transdisciplinary Master Insert ‘Shaping Responsible Futures’: Master students of the UT can follow this extracurricular course that addresses complex societal challenges and focuses on issues as transdisciplinary working, societal leadership and change making.
- NIKOS: This is a research group at the UT focused on innovation and entrepreneurship. They try to bring I&E closer to the students through several opportunities, namely:
- EntrepreneurialU: an entrepreneurial summer school
- High Tech-Human Touch minors: minor courses that all Bachelor students can follow to learn more about the societal issues the UT is working on with their state of the art research. One of these minors focuses on Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Business Development.
- program Entrepreneurship and Business Development: A bachelor honours programme for ambitious and motivated bachelor students to train students to become real-time entrepreneurs.
- VRSI Lab: Both labs encourage and facilitate multi-disciplinary teams in various development trajectories. The synchronisation of stakeholder perception (inside or across the borders of an organisation), the visualisation of possible future scenarios, complex multiple stakeholder decision making, collective idea generation or impressing/overawing clients, are among the targets.
- TechMed Simulation & Training Centre: This simulated environment is used by our educational programmes as a safe learning environment where students can experiment, make mistakes and learn. It consists of various simulated healthcare environments, ranging from operating rooms, intensive care units to a simulated house environment.
- BMS Lab: The BMS lab is the lab of the social sciences faculty at the University of Twente. It provides research support to both students and researchers. The BMS lab provides equipment and lab facilities, consults on study design and methodology and develops its very own software solutions and apps. Sign-up your own project, read about our facilities or continue reading.
- Interaction Lab: A resource for borrowing high-tech equipment for human interaction with technology. Tech VR headsets, holograms, computers, and haptics can be borrowed for projects and research. It also provides tutorials on the usage of the equipment, and regularly organises hackathons, competitions, and other events for the promotion of innovation in the field.
- Honours tracks: The Honours programmes of the University of Twente (UT) offer outstanding and motivated VWO, Bachelor, and Master students an opportunity to challenge themselves both academically and socially. All these programmes have a distinctive profile: High Tech Human Touch. This means that unique combinations of technology, engineering, and social sciences are embraced to respond effectively to challenges and questions posed by society.
- Career services: The University of Twente Career Services is here to help and support you in thinking about your future – enabling you to start your successful career as soon as you have graduated.
- CuriousU:CuriousU Summer School is an international event where you follow academic courses and workshops, listen to inspiring speakers and participate in fun activities.
- Process of Change (Honours programme):This Honours programme alows students to think and learn about how undesryand change and how to put it in practice.
- Entrepeneurship & Business Development (Honours Programme): This Honours programme alows students to learn and understand an entrepeneurial mindset and teaches students how to become real time entepeneurs.
- Model, Wood and Metal Workshop: There are a number virtual and physical prototype-making facilities available to ID students. ID students can use the workshops in the Westhorst during scheduled time slots to make physical prototypes.
- Professional Board workshops: Student Union supports boards by providing free professional workshops. Each association can apply for one workshop course per academic year. The workshops focus on various skills such as communication, management, budgeting, etc.
Actively supporting the university technology transfer function
At the moment there are two technology transfer offices at the university:
- Novel-T: As the entrepreneurial start-up hub of the university, Novel-T aims at connecting student startups to companies for collaboration, supporting with patents acquisition, and making research done here at the UT available to the wider public. In general they help startups to realise their solutions.
- Fraunhofer Institute: Focuses on creating a direct connection between innovative research and its application in the industrial workplace.
Facilitating university-industry collaboration
With the region Twente’s focus on businesses, innovation and entrepreneurship, the University of Twente is surrounded by organizations supporting entrepreneurs to develop their business. By hosting programmes, encouraging founders to share and discuss their ideas and furthermore by providing the knowledge and experience these organizations enable beginning businesses to evolve:
- Novel-T: The dutch incubator Novel-T supports entrepreneurs in many ways. Novel-T offers mentoring for starting businesses, programmes for young founders to understand the economy and how to develop their business, as well as legal advice at any stage of a growing business.
- Incubase: Incubase is founded and run by a former Novel-T team and offers students as well as start-ups space, knowledge and advice to share their experiences, gather more information and work together to make their project succeed.
- Hive01: Formerly known as New Entrepreneurial Student Society Twente, Hive01 offers young businesses and founders the opportunity to become investor ready, create their business plan and gain experience in presenting their ideas. [18.09.2022 offline]
- Integrand: Integrand supports students to work in the industry. They provide students with fitting internships to gain insight on corporates and smaller businesses. Integrand also offers courses on Finance, Law and Technology that allows students to prepare them for their own business.
- UniPartners: UniPartners allows students to work on real-life projects based on companies’ cases. Therewith, motivated and engaged entrepreneurs can learn more about businesses and how to apply their academic knowledge in practice.
- Novel-T SMART: Novel-T SMART is your starting point to get in touch with the regional business community. Whether you are looking for a study-related side job, a great (graduation) internship or want to participate in a challenging (educational) project: they’ve got it. Businesses submit their question to them and they translate it into the best assignments for students of the University of Twente, Saxion University of Applied Sciences and Twente Regional Training Center. Put your knowledge into practice and gain relevant work experience!
Engaging with regional and local economic development efforts
The region Twente, independent organizations and the University of Twente have the capabilities to provide start-ups with the necessary economical support. All of the following are readily available for students:
- Dutch Student Investment Fund An organization run by students in the European Union that helps to turn ideas into reality. The DSIF provides help with your idea, prototyping, financing and finding customers.
- University Fund: A fund organised by the University of Twente to fund ideas for events created on the campus.
- Cottonwood Technology Fund: A venture capitalist fund that invests in disruptive ideas in the Twente region. It has given a total of 10 million euros to a variety of start-ups from the University of Twente.
- Innovations Industries: A venture capitalist fund which is partnered with the University of Twente. They economically fund spin off projects originated from the UT. In 2018 Innovation Industries invested 1 million in IamFluidics.
- Twente Technology Fund: An independent venture capital fund aiming to capitalize on new technological developments. The fund focuses on seed and early stage companies.
- KIVI students Twente: A national organisation with a department in Twente. They organise events targeted for young engineers to inspire, connect and support their future career.
- Study Associations: Along with the aforementioned things, these associations also organise company visits for students within the associations’ field of study and collaborate with the industry through design case studies and projects.
- OostNL Capital: The East Netherlands Development Agency (Oost NL) supports you as an entrepreneur (interested) in our region. Whether you’re considering locating to the East of the Netherlands or have existing operations here, Oost NL assists you at every stage with free and confidential services.
- Overview subsidy programs Province of Overjissel: This is an overview of the subsidy programs in the region of Overijssel, which are accessible to UT students as well.
- Energiefonds Overijssel: Energiefonds Overijssel is the first and largest regional energy fund in the Netherlands, established in 2012 by the province of Overijssel. The fund contributes to accelerating the energy transition by financing sustainable and renewable energy projects in the province.
- High Tech Factory: High-Tech lease fund - situated on the University of Twente where the fund accommodates companies engaged in high-quality development and production. It offers high quality cleanrooms, laboratories equipped with all the essential facilities and offices space. High Tech Factory, the place where ideas are transformed into products.
- Golden Egg Check: Golden Egg Check are startup analysts. With data, insights and network within the (Dutch) tech and VC ecosystem they help startups, investors, corporates and policy makers to make the Netherlands the no. 1 startup ecosystem in Europe.
Business and startup competitions
- More Than A Degree: The More Than A Degree Awards is a yearly award show to celebrate student activism at the University of Twente. Students, boards and committees who delivered an exceptional contribution to the student life in Enschede are at the center of this large event.
- UTchallenge: Every year, since the first edition in 2017, the UT Entrepreneurial Challenge has offered students the opportunity to further develop their own, ingenious ideas, prototypes and research projects into business plans, minimal viable products and start-ups. The main purpose and mission is to challenge students to create great, out-of-the-box, innovative solutions to societal problems and to translate them into real products and business plans, while incorporating the expertise that our innovative and knowledgeable partners share with them during the challenge.
- Create Tomorrow: Create Tomorrow is a two-days think tank, where students brainstorm ideas for particular clients.
Internship, co-op opportunity or business plan projects with external partners.
Connecting students to oppertunities to further their careers and life beyond university.
- [1] This is a consultancy organisation connecting students and companies. For students there are opportunities to do a project at an interesting firm or join a committee. As an organization you can make an appointment if you are looking for a motivated and talented student that can support your organization.
- [2] Novel-T SMART connects students with local buisinesses. Translating questions from buisinesses into assignments for students to work on along side their studies. This allows students to apply study-related knowledge and skills in practice and can be used as internships, graduation assignments, part-time jobs, PDeng, etc.
- [3] Career services supports students in their career orientation and offers possibilities for companies to contact students.
Related links
University Website
Wiki pages
University Of Twente
University of Twente Student Priorities
University Innovation Fellows
Fall 2022
Kimberly Tadiwanashe Mhuruyengwe
Fall 2021
Fall 2020
Fall 2019
Fall 2018
Spring 2018
Fall 2017
Spring 2017
Fall 2016
Related links
