WTMC, the interdisciplinary Netherlands Graduate Research School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture, will return to the University of Twente as a hosting university. From 2005 till 2017 the University of Maastricht was WTMC’s host. “WTMC is one of the most prominent doctoral schools worldwide in the field of science, technology and innovation studies (STIS). It provides an excellent academic environment, in terms of research and teaching, for its doctoral candidates.” This is the verdict of an international evaluation panel (April 2017). The panel concluded that “WTMC makes an outstanding contribution to society. WTMC builds upon an excellent research foundation within its field and is therefore excellently equipped in terms of future research capacity. On that basis, we assess WTMC as being of world-leading quality with regard to its doctoral training activities.”
High quality training
WTMC provides high quality, interdisciplinary training for PhD candidates with summer schools, workshops with leading Dutch and international scholars, “writeshops” etc., aiming to create new generations of scholars with a solid background in this interdisciplinary field. WTMC’s most recent workshop was about “(Re)inventing Responsibility and Innovation”. Beyond that, the network stimulates high quality research and contributes to debates about the role of science and technology in society and it promotes the visibility of the field amongst research funders, universities and others concerned with research and education policy. Examples of WTMC activities can be found at the WTMC Video Channel.
Career perspective
The career perspectives of WTMC graduates are excellent. Sixty-four candidates completed their PhDs between 2011 and 2016. Of these, 38 are now working in Dutch or other universities and five in universities of applied sciences (hogescholen). Of the remainder, 10 are working in government organisations and a further 6 in civil society organisations.
Accreditation
WTMC started as a network of STIS groups at Dutch universities in 1987, and was officially accredited as an interuniversity graduate research school by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in 1995. Since then the network has been reaccredited regularly. Currently WTMC is maintained by STIS groups at the UT (Faculty BMS, dept. STePS and Philosophy) and at the universities Maastricht, Utrecht, Nijmegen, Eindhoven, Amsterdam (VU), and supported by groups based at the universities Groningen, Leiden, Delft, Amsterdam (UvA), and the KNAW. Schools like WTMC do complement – and do not compete with! – the efforts of local graduate programmes, such as the Twente Graduate School.
Professor Stefan Kuhlmann
Professor Stefan Kuhlmann (BMS, STePS) will lead WTMC as Academic Director, taking over from Professor Sally Wyatt, University of Maastricht.
