During his farewell conference “The golden triangle collaboration,” at the University of Twente on Wednesday 24 April, Dr Anne Flierman received the royal honour as Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau. The decoration was presented by the Royal Commissioner for the Province of Overijssel, Ank Bijleveld-Schouten.
Flierman was President of the Executive Board of the University of Twente (UT) since 1 August 2005. Under this presidency he played a major role in not only raising the profile of the UT to a leading (inter)national university but also in its regional embedment by strengthening links with the Municipality of Enschede, the Twente region, and the Province of Overijssel. Flierman can be regarded as one of the most important architects of Twente’s Innovation Leap, the intensive, golden triangle collaboration between knowledge institutes, governments and the business community. This initiative not only enabled the attunement of innovation policies of both province and region, but also – with a joint Investment Committee – available resources to be granted to promising innovation projects and a combined implementation of the Twente Knowledge Park and the Twente Innovation Platform.
Under Flierman’s leadership, the UT redefined its strategy with the introduction of RoUTe’14, which resulted in the profile 'High Tech, Human Touch’. He was also the driving force behind the setting up of the Graduate School and the Tenure Track system which challenges talented scientists to fast-track their academic career. Overall, during his time at the UT, Flierman’s focus was on talent and the promotion of women to higher positions.
In the various nomination letters considerable attention was paid to Flierman’s important role in attracting (industrial) businesses to Twente as a cooperation partner for research groups of the UT. This resulted in a strong increase in high-quality employment in the Twente region, such as with the Center for Medical Imaging, TPRC and XUV Optics.
Flierman offered an added value to the collaboration with the Province of Overijssel. For him it was essential that the expertise and technology developed at the UT should be used for realizing the province’s social and economic objectives. In 2010, for example, he was one of the architects of the Overijssel Centres for Research and Innovation (OCRI), an initiative whereby the UT provides the expertise and the Province of Overijssel provides the funds to resolve societal issues.
Ank Bijleveld-Schouten on Anne Flierman: “The university is strongly embedded in an outstanding and robust network of knowledge institutes, governments, education and the business community. And especially the latter may be seen as his personal achievement.”
Since June 2008 Flierman also fulfilled an additional role as Chairman of the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU). In this role he contributed to positioning Twente as an innovative region where government, industry and knowledge institutes collaborate effectively; a reputation that did not go unnoticed by European policy makers.
In the period preceding the UT, and as Vice-President of Maastricht University, Anne Flierman endeavoured to securely embed the university in the region of southern Limburg. There, too, he made an important contribution to local industry and employment and his vice-presidency was characterized by a strong sense of administrative relationships, by his consistent and clear financial policy and a deep commitment to the region’s education and care.
Flierman’s exceptional social involvement is also apparent from the many administrative and additional (party) political roles he has fulfilled in the past two decades and still performs, as in the Dutch Senate for the CDA (Christian Democratic Party), in the provincial commission for rural areas ‘Landelijk gebied Overijssel’, in the Supervisory Board of the Regional Hospital Queen Beatrix (SKB) in Winterswijk and in many other additional positions.
On May 1 Anne Flierman will take up his new post as Chairman of NVAO, the independent accreditation organization for higher education in the Netherlands and Flanders.
Contact information for the press: Bertyl Lankhaar, spokesperson for the Executive Board of the University of Twente, T +31 (0)53 489 2210.
