How can we keep increasing our societal impact as a university? That was the central question at the 56th Dies Natalis, the annual birthday celebration of the University of Twente. The answer to that question is included in this year's theme: "Create, Connect, Contribute".
Lasting impact
In his speech, Rector Magnificus Thom Palstra gave an outlook on what elements are relevant for the university of the future. "And in that, I believe that the University of Twente should focus on interdisciplinary research in areas with great economic and societal potential", Thom Palstra stated. "We should not hesitate to shift away from areas where this potential does not exist."
Generating impact is no solely a matter of being the best in your subject field. Thom Palstra: "Excellence is more than winning a scientific prize, or being rewarded a publication in a leading magazine, leading to personal success. It also involves bringing others into a position to succeed. It is about engaging in the scientific community and with society at large. Scientific developments across the world are so rapid that individual excellence is no longer enough. Team work is what is necessary, because impact requires contributions from various disciplines; it is the only way to approach and resolve complex problems like the UN goals and the European Grand Challenges."
University of Twente - our story
At the University of Twente, we are pioneers in fusing technology, science and engineering with social sciences to impact the world around us. In our passion for understanding our planet and improving life for everyone on it, scientists, educators and students wield a unique cross-disciplinary approach and excellence in scientific disciplines to contribute to five of the challenges we face.
- Improving healthcare by personalized technologies
- Creating intelligent manufacturing systems
- Shaping our world with smart materials
- Engineering our digital society
- Engineering for a resilient world
Suzanne Hulscher: coastal dynamics
This year's Dies Lecture was delivered by Suzanne Hulscher, professor in Water Engineering and Management. Hulscher gave an insight in the world of river and coastal engineering. "I wanted to make clear that natural processes can help us protect ourselves against extreme conditions. We can’t take away any possible risk. Sometimes nature is our enemy, but in many cases it can be our friend or even help in constructing. For resilient and sustainable solutions, we’ll have to behave along with nature and find nature-based solutions."
Hulscher :"An interesting question for this afternoon is: would we, again, build the Afsluitdijk, using the knowledge we have today? And would we build it in the same way?"
Award ceremony
Traditionally, two annual awards are presented at the Dies Natalis. Dong Nguyen received the Overijssel PhD Award 2017 for her thesis about using big data for computational text analysis of social media. The Professor de Winter Prize 2017 was presented to Ainara Garde for her research on early accurate diagnosis of childhood illnesses by affordable and easy-to-use means.
