Scientific Director of the Technical Medical Centre, Prof Dr Nico Verdonschot has been appointed as Scientific Director of MedTechNL. With this appointment, Nico will step down as Scientific Director of the TechMed Centre, which he has headed for the past four years.
Perspectives is a new series of talks in which a current theme is discussed. Various guests from within the UT are invited to discuss the theme from different perspectives. Members of the Executive Board also take turns in the discussion.
Albert van den Berg, UT Distinguished Professor of Biomedical and Environmental Sensor Systems (BIOS) and one of the scientific directors of UT’s MESA+ Institute, has been elected ‘corresponding member’ of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW). This organization represents the interests of technology education, research and industry at the highest level, in Switzerland.
According to the Dutch Inspectorate of Education, many primary school pupils do not learn mathematics as well as they could. In the coalition agreement, the new cabinet expresses the wish that every child should learn mathematics. At the moment, mathematics education is insufficiently attuned to the possibilities and needs of pupils. For her PhD research, Jorine Vermeulen investigated how teachers can better meet the educational needs of pupils in third grade (‘groep 5’). “With the right diagnostic questions, you discover how your student thinks”.
The European Research Council (ERC) awarded a ‘Starting Grant’ to three UT scientists. These ‘early career’ grants go to Nienke Bosschaart, Sander Huisman and Chris Baeumer. In this round, 379 Starting Grants were awarded, worth an amount of 619 million euro: for each individual researcher an amount of 1,5 million euro, for a period of five years.
In 2021 David Fernandez Rivas will be the UT employee who appears most often in the media. Last year, the Cuban researcher at the University of Twente’s Faculty of Science & Technology was voted Dutch Engineer of the Year and received a great deal of attention for his research into needle-free injection. The UT in the Media Award was presented during the University of Twente’s New Year’s Eve event, which was held this morning.
The worldwide deterioration of reading skills due to the increase in online chatting is continuing per country. This is the conclusion of a study by researcher Hans Luyten from the University of Twente. He studied the data from the international PISA-surveys (Programme for International Student Assessment) in 2009 and 2018 in 63 countries. This was part of a large-scale comparative research study conducted under the auspices of the OESO. During that period, online chatting increased significantly in almost every country, but the rate of increase varied considerably from country to country. In Japan, for example, the percentage of students chatting daily increased from 9% to 85%, whereas the increase in Russia was much lower (from 42% to 58%).
The University of Twente, the Kennispark Twente Area Foundation, the City of Enschede and the ASR Dutch Science Park Fund have signed a partnership agreement. The deal represents a collective commitment to transform Kennispark Twente and realise commercial real estate for its broad range of tenants.
The formal four-way collaboration offers additional real estate investments opportunities that can deliver on the vision of the Kennispark Twente area as a dynamic location for talent and innovation. The parties’ complementary strengths come together in a joint approach that will serve the interests of all target groups at Kennispark Twente. The University of Twente will focus on real estate that serves its core tasks of education, research and commercial knowledge transfer. The ASR Dutch Science Park Fund will look to the real estate needs of commercial parties seeking to establish themselves at the science park.
Prof.dr. Tanya Bondarouk has been appointed by the Executive Board as Dean of the Faculty of Behavioural Management and Social Sciences (BMS) at the University of Twente. As of 1 April 2022, she will succeed Theo Toonen, who has held this position since 2015. The appointment is for a period of four years.
Already four days after the previous press conference, today the Dutch national government announced new measures in the fight against COVID-19. This is due to the great uncertainty surrounding the omicron variant. The new measures have a major impact on universities. Hereby is an overview.
The University of Twente (UT) and research organisation TNO are reinforcing their collaboration. Today a Memorandum of Understanding was signed. Joint programmes will be developed on three themes: robotics, cybersecurity, and intelligent diagnostics. This is an important step for the UT and the Twente region, partly because TNO has expressed its intention to further reinforce the ties with the region.
The funding falls within the Open Technology Programme (OTP) of the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The research to improve the pessary success rate is being led by Dr Anique Grob (TNW Faculty and Technical Physician at the gynaecology department of ZGT). And the research by the project team of Dr V. Kalpathy Venkiteswaran (ET Faculty) aims to improve the state of the art in robotic surgery and develop tools that can be easily integrated into surgical suites.
Dutch Research Council NWO awarded a ‘Veni’ grant to two young UT scientists, Dr. Annika Betken and Dr. Hans-Christian Ruiz. Thanks to this grant, they can work out their innovative research ideas for a period of three years. Annika will work on changes in time series, Hans-Christian on new ways of artificial intelligence, using special materials.
Catalysts are important additives that are used to increase the material and energy efficiency of chemical reactions and processes. Although catalysts operate in cycles that should restore their initial activity over and over again, they do deactivate over time. Researchers from Utrecht University and University of Twente have now developed a powerful analytical tool that marks dead catalyst particles for deletion, providing a technique to physically remove them from a stream of particles. They are publishing their results today in Nature Catalysis.
The funding falls within the Open Technology Programme (OTP) of the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The research into automating the creation of new maps using old maps is being led by Dr Sander Oude Elberink (ITC Faculty), and the research on ‘organ-on-a-chip’ models for research into fibrotic diseases by Prof Séverine Le Gac (EEMCS Faculty).