Rector magnificus Elmer Sterken announced the appointment during his speech at the opening of the academic year. ‘Having good relations with industry is of extreme importance to the university’, according to Sterken.
By appointing Iris Vis, who is also a professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business, as dean of industry relations, the RUG wants to strengthen its relationship with industry. ‘There are different ways to do this’, says Vis. ‘Researchers can try to find industrial applications for the results of their fundamental research. Conversely, they can take a business world issue and use it as a starting point for scientific research at the RUG. There are also several educational possibilities, for instance in the field of professionalisation programmes.’
‘Join forces’
The RUG has been collaborating with industry for years. For example, Tata Steel offers student grants every year, companies such as Philips Drachten, Gasunie and Shell provide for honorary professorships, and Friesland Campina is a partner at the RUG/Campus Fryslân.
Sterken wants to intensify these contacts. ‘Both in the political process and in day-to-day practice the academic and corporate world cooperate and join forces’, he said during the opening of the academic year.
Digital society
Dutch universities announced on Monday that they want to work together on a master plan for the ‘new digital society’. They feel that the Netherlands should become a testing ground and a model country in the field of human and society-oriented digital technology. In order to achieve this, ‘substantial extra financial contributions’ are needed at the knowledge institutes.
That is why we need investments in knowledge-based capital (such as software, databases, patents, and design, ed.), says Sterken. ‘It is by now well established that investment in knowledge-based capital is strongly correlated with economic growth.’
According to Sterken, the RUG can use projects such as LOFAR, Lifelines and Energysens to play an important role in the development of the ‘digital society’. ‘Our university can be at the core of such a development, here for the City, for the region, for our country, for Europe and the World.’
