The TU/e campus Photo: Bart van Overbeeke.

TU/e administrators share their plans for semiconductor student growth in the coming years. In doing so, we are actively collaborating with other educational institutions to fulfil the Beethoven ambitions.

27 November 2024 Source: TU/e news

Notes:

Last Wednesday, the government announced the allocation of funds for the plans for the National Microchip Talent Reinforcement Plan, one of the three pillars of project 'Beethoven', containing concrete financial commitments for the years 2025 and 2026.

Most of the funds will go to educational institutions in the Brainport region - the heart of the Dutch semicon sector - and of these, a significant part will go to TU/e.

What does this mean for the university, and what will change in the coming years?

"This award is tremendously good news for the Brainport region and for us as TU/e," says CvB president Robert-Jan Smits enthusiastically. "We have been advocating TU/e to scale up for years because of the ever-growing demand for technical talent in the region. It is fantastic that we can now take such a big step."

Smits: "That such a significant part of these funds is coming to TU/e again underlines the importance of our university for the high-tech industry here and especially the semicon. It is now up to us to deliver, to structurally significantly increase the availability of highly educated top talent for the semicon sector. I am confident that we will succeed in this."

Future Chips

"We based our plans on ambitious, realistic growth scenarios, with guarantees that we also had in our earlier plans for a jump in scale, adds Rector Silvia Lenaerts, who is ultimately responsible for TU/e's Future Chips flagship. "Namely: we get the funding upfront, the growth must not be at the expense of excellence. Growth must be gradual and facilities such as labs and student housing must be provided. All these are in the plans."

"I am extremely proud that we as TU/e, in collaboration with all our partners, manage to lay down a very well thought-out plan and get the recognition for it. This is our Futu "It fits in seamlessly with all the other recent developments: the collaboration with ASML, the collaboration with KU Leuven and IMEC, the Eindhoven Semicon Summer School, the collaborations with South Korea and Taiwan, and also the new pilot line for photonics. This strengthens our position as one of Europe's leading semicon universities. "re Chips flagship a huge boost."

Masters students

The aim of Beethoven' s talent plans is to get more talent available for the semicon sector as soon as possible. And that sector requires graduate master's students. For these reasons, TU/e fully opts for growth in master's programmes, explains Paul Koenraad, dean of TU/e's Graduate School and jointly responsible for master's education. "If we were to opt for growth in the bachelor's programmes, it would only lead to a first increase in the number of masters graduates in more than five years, which would take far too long. We are therefore going to attract students who already have a bachelor's degree and come to us to do a two-year master's programme and then can enter the job market immediately afterwards."

More information on the TU/e news site.

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