The University of Twente's Honours programme has an enormous added value for the professional development of the participating students. That is the picture that emerges from the recent peer review of this UT excellence programme. A committee made up of students, honours deans and education staff from various universities recently took a close look at the UT programme, and presented its results this week.

Starting Tuesday 4 October this year – World Animal Day - work lunches ordered at UT caterer Appèl will be vegetarian by default. This impacts lunches ordered on location from Appèl: the selection available in the canteens on campus will not change. If someone still prefers meat with their lunch, they can indicate this when placing an order. UT is introducing this so-called 'reverse standard’ because vegetarian dishes have a lower carbon footprint than dishes with meat. The land and water use of vegetarian food is also lower.

UT professor Mariëlle Stoelinga has been awarded the Test of Time Award at the International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR), a highly regarded worldwide scientific meeting in the field of theoretical computing. The award is given for historical scientific publications that still have relevance in their field today.

During his internship as a Chemical Technology student at Danish company Haldor Topsøe, UT PhD researcher Kevin Rouwenhorst realised the many opportunities offered by ammonia. At the moment, it is principally used to manufacture artificial fertiliser and therefore has a bad name. But ammonia is also one of seven chemicals that form the basis of all chemical products, and it helps to feed around 50% of the world’s population.