History of collaboration
The University of Twente has been cooperating with Mexican institutions since the late nineties of the last century. Particularly ties with Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM or TEC) are strong and ever expanding. Like UT, TEC is one the founding fathers of the European Consortium of Innovative Universities, ECIU, which was created in 1997. Common grounds between UT and TEC since then and still today are our widely recognized expertise in entrepreneurship and innovation of education. The first formal agreements with Tec were set up around 2007, not only on student exchange but also in research areas like environmental quality.
Agreements
UT has several agreements for cooperation in different areas with Mexican institutions. Most importantly with Tecnológico de Monterrey we have a Student Exchange agreement (current version 2019) to exchange 30 bachelor students per year for a semester stay. We also have a Double Degree PhD agreement (2022) and an agreement on of the Accelerated Masterprogramme Nanotechnology (2023).
Current projects
At UT’s faculty Science & Technology multiple research groups are cooperating with the TEC, for example in areas of optical science, nanotechnology, stem cell technology and mesoscale chemical systems, mainly on subjects related to health and climate (e.g. decarbonization, ammonia). One research group obtained an Erasmus + KA107-2021-2023 budget to carry out projects with TEC by financially supporting student and staff mobility.
Since a large UT research delegation visited TEC in October 2022, new relations were built and the Double Degree PhD agreement was signed. Since then there is great interest of UT and TEC researchers and PhD supervisors for their PhD candidates to do research at UT and some are starting in February 2023. In April 2023 the first Double Degree PhD candidate will defend his thesis.