Five questions for Anka Mulder on the new Saxion strategy: ‘Talent for the future’

The title of the Saxion Strategic Plan 2025-2030 is ‘Talent for the future’. Great strides have been made these past months in creating this new strategy. Time to ask Anka Mulder, President of the Executive Board (CvB) five questions about the direction Saxion is taking in the coming years. “We are doing well in a lot of things and want to continue doing so. So, in the new plan we want to build upon the current strategic plan 2020-2024,” says Anka Mulder.

Anka, how did the plan come about? Who has contributed to it?

“Many people have contributed to it. There were the ‘Drink tea with the CvB’ sessions, we organised drop-in living rooms, all heads and directors worked on it with their teams and we got our regional partners involved in our meetings on the role of Saxion in the region. I enjoyed the ’Drink tea with the CvB’ sessions the most, where I chatted with students and staff about a wide range of subjects. One conversation would be about how we can provide students with good support while another would be on the importance of our work culture and the opportunities open to us in that respect. All these conversations provided a huge amount of valuable input that we have been able to use in the new plan.”

Can you tells us anything about the key priorities?  

“We are doing well in a lot of things and want to continue doing so. So, in the new plan we want to build upon the current strategic plan 2020-2024, with a shift of emphasis. By and large this boils down to the fact that with fewer students – and therefore less money – we still need to make great strides in our societal function: providing our region with talent for the future to build a sustainable, digital and safe society. We will do this through four movements: more student success, offering a broader range of courses, substantial growth of our research branch and a result-oriented professional culture.

We are strengthening our commitment to student success. This means paying more attention to student well-being and supervision from day 1, as well as offering suitable and successful educational pathways. For students, their study needs to come first again. We will also be looking at suitable and relevant side-jobs for students.

The second movement is concerned with providing a broader range of courses. We will consider how we can maintain smaller programmes that are compatible with the region. At the same time, we will look at new programmes, again focusing on the region. This also includes attracting talent from other countries to meet the needs of the labour market in the Eastern Netherlands. Furthermore, we will look at how – from the perspective of the regional jobs market – we can better serve part-time students.                                                                                           

The third movement concerns substantial growth of our research, that will become a larger ‘branch’ of Saxion. We are already strong in the field of research, but are now taking the next step. For example, we are going to look into how research and education can strengthen each other even more; the same applies to research and entrepreneurship. In terms of content, the interaction between humans and technology remains key.                                                

Finally the result-oriented professional culture. Personal attention and our cooperative attitude form a great foundation for how we interact with one another. In the coming years we will need to sail close to the wind. This in itself makes it important that we work in a more result-oriented manner. This also means that we hold each other to account and organise feedback. We are not going to make this into a culture project by the way, but we will just get on and do it.”

How does the new strategic plan differ from the previous one? 

“The new plan builds upon the previous one, but the four priorities are new. We have chosen to explicitly single out several topics in the coming period and put extra focus on them. We don’t want to do too much at once. We already have a solid base. We will continue with what we are doing and where necessary take extra steps to remain fit for future.”

Can you tell us what the biggest challenges are?

“So, we want to make a major effort to increase student success and well-being. I believe that this is the biggest challenge; something without a simple solution. However, it is extremely important that we pay attention to this, especially when you see how much student well-being is under pressure in the Netherlands. Furthermore, I think that this is important to the employment market: talent is becoming increasingly scarce. Then you need to help the talent there is as much as possible in finding the right study route.

The cutbacks also form a challenge in the coming period. These are necessary in times of contraction.  However, at the same time we have to invest in expanding our range of courses, as we realise that this is necessary in order to meet the requirements of the regional labour market. The pursuit of research growth provides opportunities for new investments. The combination of ‘cutbacks’ and ‘continue building for the future’ is certainly a challenge. Although it is one we can anticipate well and one that we have laid down basic principles for in our new strategic plan.”

When can we read the new Strategic Plan 2025-2030?  

“The University Council has agreed to the plan and the Supervisory Board has approved it; in the coming phase we need to set up indicators so we can monitor our objectives. The new plan comes into effect at the start of 2025. We will disclose the final version later this year. At the moment we are thinking about how we want to ‘land’ the plan, so that its content can come to life. Not only at Saxion but also with our regional partners. So that we get a real feel for it. This will only work when we do this together. I’m confident about this process. At Saxion we have so many passionate and talented students and staff. This new Saxion Strategic Plan 2025-2030 enables us to firmly focus on the future together.”