As chairman of the Executive Board of Erasmus University Rotterdam I would like to extend a warm welcome to you at the EUA Autumn Conference on the theme of Inclusive and Responsive Universities –ensuring Europe’s competitiveness. The theme underlines the need for higher education that is widely accessible, as set forth in the Lisbon Declaration in 2000. It is a theme moreover that has become a policy goal throughout the European Union in an endeavour to ensure that new target groups participate in higher education. For our university, those new groups include not only non-native Dutch students but older people, employees and, in particular, women who must all become a permanent fixture in our university community.

Diversity is our answer to a changing society. Erasmus University Rotterdam’s active programme of ‘Participation and Inclusiveness’ is a response to our changing society and is intended to serve the city of Rotterdam and its community as well as the country as a whole.

We are doing all we can to recruit more non-native Dutch students and staff. Our aim is to achieve a better balance between ‘local’ and ethnic minority students. And although the advancement of women to higher positions in the university is far from complete, Erasmus University Rotterdam has also taken up the challenge to increase the number of staff members from ethnic minorities. To this end we have taken the lead as the only university in the Netherlands with a policy on ethnic minorities.

I should also like to invite you to visit our city and to become familiar with the many faces of Rotterdam: the biggest port in Europe with its signature bridges of which we are so proud; the skyline of ultramodern buildings, indoor and outdoor museums, concert halls, cinemas, countless restaurants, bistros and pavements cafes, shopping malls as well as the historic centre of Delfshaven. Less than an hour away you will find the capital Amsterdam, the seat of government The Hague and the university city of Utrecht, while close by you can visit one of the highlights of the Dutch tourist landscape, the village of Kinderdijk, famous for its many windmills. You can find more information in the Rotterdam chapter of this brochure.

Rotterdam is a bustling metropolis which means that your participation in the conference and your stay in the Netherlands is bound to be an exciting and inspiring experience.

I wish you all a fruitful conference and I hope the results will contribute to promoting social equity and building an inclusive society.

Jan Willem Oosterwijk, MSc
President of Erasmus University Rotterdam