06 Diversity and Inclusion

With the Academic Outreach Program "Connecting Our Future", we have made good progress towards our goal of better accessibility of higher education, in co-creation with school leaders, teachers, parents and students from 10 partner schools. Amongst others, we have developed an inclusive curriculum. The programme has also made connections with over 30 organisations in the city to design activities that introduce children, youth and parents to the university, students and doing research. The positive impact from our outreach efforts comes back to us directly in the form of "our students": "In seven years' time, I will come and study here too, I promise!"

Through interviews with and questionnaires among EUR students (including in collaboration with the Pre-Academic Programme and the Platform for Student Wellbeing), we mapped the experiences and needs of historically underrepresented student groups at the university in 2022. Results from these surveys led us to start a "soft landing" working group within the local connection network of secondary schools and higher education institutions (VO-HO network) in Rotterdam. Together with this network, we are identifying which factors promote a soft landing in higher education and which activities the various higher education institutions are currently undertaking in this area.  

In 2022, the first four projects by EUR staff and students that received financial support in 2020-2021 through our Building New Blocks grant programme were completed. Two of these four projects, i.e. the CARE education project and the Dutch Caribbean Association (DCA) student association have now been institutionalised at EUR as an official minor and an official student association. 

The inclusive classroom is a place where education is provided and where all our students and teachers have a sense of belonging, feel that their voices are respected and feel that they can be successful. This learning environment encourages dialogue. The study and learning environments are designed in such a way that we can offer inclusive curricula, pedagogical approaches and assessments. To support the teachers, we have developed an online knowledge platform, with toolkits, guides, manuals on inclusive education and an inclusive classroom in short - all kinds of best practices that are easy to apply.

In early 2022, as an institution, we signed the Amnesty Manifesto against sexual violence among students. This signing was accompanied by the rollout of the prepared action plan. Among other things, training courses and workshops were conducted on giving and asking for consent, and an awareness campaign was launched about unwanted sexual behaviour.