News item | 21-08-2025 | 16:00
The cooperation between universities on specific research and educational topics is bearing fruit, according to two evaluations that Minister Bruins sends to the Lower House today. Through cooperation, designed in sector plans per science field, government money for research and education is spent more targeted and opportunities for more regular jobs for employees have arisen. In addition to new fundamental knowledge, socially relevant solutions have emerged from sector plans, such as a PFAS filter for water, AI applications for health care and a program for more beta teachers.
Minister Bruins: “The way in which universities work together and jointly pick up social issues, everyone benefits, in science and society. With the sector plans we give universities the opportunity to specialize and thus achieve better and more targeted results. The preservation of the sector plans was a conscious choice of the future of this cabin -voltage. produce. “
PFAS filter and AI applications in healthcare
By joining forces and distributing tasks, universities can make more focus in their education and research. This focus brings society beautiful scientific innovations. One of these is the development of an effective PFAS filter at Wageningen University & Research. The sector plan researchers developed a reusable and scalable filter that can easily get PFAS from water. And a research group has been established at the University of Amsterdam that looks at responsible AI solutions for challenges in data analysis of health care. In addition to scientific developments, the sector plans also bring educational solutions for society, such as the Beta4all bridging program. Through this program, more academically trained beta teachers are graduating, which is a great shortage.
More research and educational positions
The sector plans have been created to have universities in the field of research and education coordinated, profiled and join forces. From the evaluation reports of the sector plans Social & Humanities (SSH) and Bèta & Techniek (B&T) It appears that this method is also successful for the universities themselves. For example, new research and educational positions have been created with the sector plans. The national cooperation and coordination within and between disciplines and between universities has clearly improved.
We also see an inflow of new talent and more focuses on diversity when the scientists are appointed. For example, the new positions at beta and technology are half a woman.
Future
With the outline agreement in 2024, the sector plans threatened to disappear. Minister Bruins has chosen to maintain the sector plans to maintain 1200 permanent jobs of scientists, although other painful choices had to be made because of the cutbacks in higher education and science. Based on the positive evaluation of the two sector planning committees, Minister Bruins decided to continue the financing of the sector plans (2018-2024) for Bèta and Technology (B&T) and Social and Humanities (SSH). That is more than € 100 million a year. Due to the success of the existing sector plans, it is currently being explored whether this instrument can also work for other scientific disciplines.