New master tracks, retention officers, international recruitment campaigns, and a new chip institute: Project Beethoven is clearly well underway. Just over a year ago, the university received the first 11 million euros of the total 91 million euros allocated by the government. The funding is intended to educate more technical talent for the semiconductor sector.

By 2030, the university aims to attract more than 1,900 additional master’s students within the departments of Mechanical Engineering (ME), Applied Physics & Science Education (APSE), Electrical Engineering (EE), and Mathematics & Computer Science (M&CS). Over the same period, both academic staff and support staff have to grow by 146 new employees.

On track

As things stand, the university is on track to meet those goals, Lenaerts says. Support staff have already been hired, and recruitment of academic staff is gaining momentum. TU/e recently published ten Beethoven-related vacancies for EE. ME, M&CS, and APSE are also in the middle of recruitment processes. This year, the university has to hire five researchers for the project. The rector does not foresee any problems there.

According to Lenaerts, student numbers also look promising. When the project started, TU/e decided to lower the target number of new master’s students by one hundred. “I’m glad we did that, because the original number was extremely ambitious.”

Reaching 1,903 new master’s students by 2030 should be feasible, the rector believes. In the current academic year, growth was already visible in three of the four Beethoven departments. Mechanical Engineering was the only department to see a decline in the number of master’s students. “We really need to look into why that is, because we can’t explain it yet.”

Striking the right chord

Many initiatives to attract new master’s students only started this year, which means their effects will not become visible until the next academic year. Some initiatives still need to get off the ground, including one aimed at making it easier for students to move between higher vocational education (HBO) and the university. The groundwork for this is already in place through the Wisselstroom project.

Other efforts are already underway. For example, the university has hired four retention officers, whose role is to encourage more students to stay at TU/e for a master’s after completing their bachelor’s degree. The university deliberately chose young professionals for these positions, “because they better understand how students think and communicate.”

According to Lenaerts, the challenge is to strike the right chord with prospective students. That also applies to women, who she says are still underrepresented. “We know that women often want to make an impact and serve a societal purpose. That societal purpose is definitely there, but we often don’t communicate it clearly enough.”

The semiconductor sector, for instance, contributes to making healthcare more accessible, affordable, and inclusive, the rector says. “Without chips and electronic components, you simply can’t realize progress in healthcare.”

Looking beyond boundaries

The message the university communicate and the substantive content of its master’s programs need to align with what students are looking for. “We also really want to set up disruptive new master’s programs. With circularity and sustainability in semicon, for example, we can do entirely new things.”

That is why departments that are not officially part of Project Beethoven are also needed, Lenaerts says. To make collaboration between departments easier, the university wants to explore whether admission requirements can be aligned more closely. At the moment, they still differ by department. “It’s a bit odd that one department has different admission requirements than another. I see this as an opportunity to simplify those kinds of things.”

Getting on board

The university is also looking beyond departmental boundaries when it comes to new master tracks, of which at least fifteen should be launched by 2030. Two new master tracks have already been set up that two departments are collaborating in. In addition, two more tracks are in the pipeline involving the departments of Biomedical Engineering and Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences—neither of which are official Beethoven departments.

“It’s really the intention to have other departments get on board with the new master’s programs. It would be a shame if we kept new opportunities only within the Beethoven departments.” There will also be a cross-border master’s program, developed in collaboration with TalTech in Estonia.

Research

Lenaerts sees Beethoven as a chance to collaborate in a fundamentally new way. “To lower or break down the walls within the university.” This applies both between departments and between different domains within the university. “The task forces we are setting up don’t belong to a single department or only to support services—they truly bring together services and departments.” The same applies to the new Semicon Steering Committee — previously the Beethoven steering group — in which education, research, and valorization are permanently on the agenda, according to Lenaerts.

“Education is, of course, the core of Beethoven, but it is also linked to research. When we hire lecturers, they will also do research. So it’s important that we agree on what kind of research we want to conduct and whether that research can also contribute to our valorization efforts. That really is a new way of working.”

Casimir Institute

The steering committee also includes the directors of the new Casimir Institute. When Project Beethoven started, there was still a Future Chips Flagship. In the original plan, all program management would fall under that flagship. But the flagship no longer exists; it has been absorbed into the new institute. The university felt it would not be a good idea to place the entire Project Beethoven under a newly established institute.

“If we were to place all of Beethoven under a new institute with seven hundred researchers right away, that would be too heavy a burden.” According to Lenaerts, the Casimir Institute is still very closely involved in Beethoven, but now operates alongside it.

By linking new academic positions for Beethoven to research within the Casimir Institute, the rector hopes to further strengthen the university’s profile as an excellent research university. “Our research really is the foundation of our education and, therefore, of our master’s programs. Being taught by top researchers who have done truly impressive work is fantastic.” Excelling in research can also help attract more master’s students, especially from abroad.

Housing shortage

If international students want to come to Eindhoven for a master’s program, they need somewhere to live, though. Last summer, TU/e said it had “lost” five hundred students due to the ongoing housing shortage. The problem will not be solved overnight, Lenaerts believes.

“But a lot is happening right now. Municipalities in the Eindhoven Metropolitan Region, for example, are actively working on realizing student housing. Take the project on the Dorgelolaan, where it has been agreed that 1,000 student housing units will be added, directly adjacent to our campus.” She expects that the current efforts will pay off and ultimately solve the problem.

A great deal is happening on the geopolitical stage. Lenaerts does not expect these developments to negatively affect Project Beethoven. “The funding has already been allocated. And the geopolitical situation actually underscores the importance of Beethoven. We need to make sure we can keep value chains here. And the demand for chips remains, it’s not going away.”

For the rector, the geopolitical situation is also an incentive to set up more similar projects in other areas, such as materials for the high-tech manufacturing industry. “We are very dependent on raw materials from China. We really need to think about how we can keep the entire materials chain here.”

That is why, alongside semicon, the university is also focusing on materials, energy, and health in its new institutional plan. Within these domains, TU/e wants to focus primarily on the future, Lenaerts says.

“It is our task to educate the professionals of tomorrow, but also to build knowledge for industry ten years from now and beyond. Companies focus on short-term problems. We are here to build a resilient society with people who have deep knowledge across different domains.”

Internal evaluation

Although the rector says the project is currently on track, it will only become clear in March whether that is truly the case across all areas, when TU/e conducts an internal evaluation. The university itself played a major role in defining the conditions that must be met, but ultimately the measures must result in a sufficient increase in the number of master’s students.

Around the summer, the official report to the government will also come into view. The release of the next tranche of funding depends on this report. It is intended not only to assess whether all interim targets have been met, but also to identify where adjustments or sharpening may be needed.

Even if the evaluation shows that the project is on schedule, that does not mean the university can sit back and relax, Lenaerts emphasizes. “That’s exactly why the Semicon Steering Committee exists for me: to keep pushing and innovating. It doesn’t happen by itself.”

This article was translated using AI-assisted tools and reviewed by an editor.