Inside Utrecht University’s approach to entrepreneurship and regional partnerships
In today’s episode, we delve into what it truly means to be a collaborative, impact-driven university. Our guest is Freek van Muiswinkel, Director of Entrepreneurship and Regional Partnerships at Utrecht University – an institution that’s redefining how universities connect with their regions, foster entrepreneurship, and drive societal change.
Freek shares how the university has broken down internal silos, built new governance models, and embedded recognition and rewards to support those working at the intersections of research, education, and impact.
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Transcript
Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Freek van Muiswinkel about what it means to be a collaborative, impact-driven university and how this plays out in practice at Utrecht University.
Since 2020, Freek has been the Director of Entrepreneurship and Regional Partnerships at Utrecht University. Utrecht is really focused on fostering regional knowledge exchange and innovation, entrepreneurial research, encompassing entrepreneurship, valorisation and spinoffs, as well as the development of entrepreneurial education into the curriculum and the recognition and reward of impactful activities.
These three topics together fit really nicely with the breadth of work that we do at UIIN. So, I am really excited to be talking with Freek today and hearing more about these activities at Utrecht. So, Freek, thank you for joining us.
Freek van Muiswinkel:
It is nice to be here.
Tasha Day:
We are going to start now. Your title combines two big domains: entrepreneurship and regional cooperation. How do you see these two coming together in your role at Utrecht University?
Freek van Muiswinkel:
Firstly, thank you for having me here, also to the audience. If there are any follow-up questions, we can answer them later, and if not, I am always there to connect with you.
My job over the years has grown from being a full-time scientist to running the Life Science Cluster in Utrecht, which is the link between our university and the medical center.
Early in this process, we noticed that making contact to the region is very valuable. Not only the municipality and the province, but also the companies in our region, since they took part in our endeavor and innovative efforts. It is a classical model, of course, but you really have to be there and put some extra effort into both the entrepreneurial side of the university, while taking all the regional partnerships very seriously and doing lots of work to connect to those partners.
Thus, my job title really grew into what I am doing now. On the one hand, entrepreneurial spirit is important. So, we foster a lot inside the university. At the same time, we try to do this outside-in, so being out of the university, mostly my job at the moment, trying to connect to those partners and seeing what their needs are for innovation.
That is basically the two things. Strengthening each other and being present in the region also means that we build platforms for our scientists to really load out their knowledge into purposeful initiatives in the region. And of course, our region is a small world. We have all the problems of the world in a small area.
We have always said, “Think global, but act local”, which is an old term, but it works fine for us. So, that is basically what I am doing.
Tasha Day:
Absolutely, thank you. I really agree with the “think global, act local”, because I think the best impacts that we can have are indeed in front of us. I think that Utrecht University is also quite a unique environment for this kind of collaboration and reaching out into the region.
It has a reputation for being collaborative and impact oriented. Could you talk to me a little bit about what factors have influenced the university in this direction?
Freek van Muiswinkel:
I thought about it in advance, but for most, it is important that we are a broad research university. We have everything, from a law school all the way to veterinary sciences. So, that brings us in a position that we not only have STEM faculties available, but also social science and humanities.
That is our university’s nature. We are in a position to do more translational and cross-disciplinary research because we have all those faculties. I think there was a moment in time that we structured this relationship between the various faculties, but we were born as a broad university, which makes this really in front of our mission to work like that.
Nowadays we would call this open science, but 20 years ago we were just inventing how to connect those disciplines in a meaningful way, which is then focused on the societal challenges, of course, but we were able to do so by having all those disciplines in-house.
We grew by taking away borders between faculties and we had different governments models in place. So, we talk to faculty boards, which are still there, but we also have some strategic teams around certain topics, which really brings everything together.
That is a process that has being going on for more than 20 years.
Tasha Day:
Indeed. I think it is really a front runner in these kinds of activities. You mentioned that you brought down borders between disciplines, and I was curious about any internal shifts that you have had to facilitate or have seen facilitated at the university to make more space for this collaboration and co-creation.
Also, on this note, how does this connect to the management of the university? Because I think it is important that the management is behind these shifts. What internal shifts have there had to be, and has it indeed been helped along by management?
Has it been easy to get them on board?
Freek van Muiswinkel:
To be honest, there are always believers and non-believers, and certainly 20 years ago there was maybe a little struggle, for example in life sciences, to bring five separate faculties, from biology all the way to pharmacy, together in one cluster. So that took a little time, but later on it turns out that it was a bottom-up approach, because most of the scholars love to work in this kind of context, as long as they get the space to do it in terms of money, but also in reward.
Every five years we build a new agenda for the strategic teams, and we have four of them in Utrecht; you can see this on our website, but one of them is Life Sciences. After four or five years, we redo our strategic teams’ agenda with a completely bottom-up approach, with scientists in the lead board following in that respect.
And again, the faculties are still there to do the regulatory research and education programs, of course. So, it has been sliding over the years that the strategic teams are now bringing fruitful collaborations, also with the outer world, but still the faculties are the pillars to build on.
It takes a little convincing and a little bit of pushing sometimes, but only pushing doesn’t work.
Tasha Day:
Indeed. Recognition and rewards are such an important and unique thing. It is not so easy for many universities to be able to get this unlocked, being able to not only push people, but actually reward them.
Freek van Muiswinkel:
The support for the people who are doing this, the scientists and the scholars in educational programs alike, they need to be supported in a different way than we did in the past.
We ask them a lot to do this transdisciplinary work and connect to the other world, but it takes lots of effort and other types of support. So, we are growing also in our support staff, into a more professional, broader, and orientated support than in the past.
I think that is fair, because otherwise you cannot ask the community to get into open science if the support and the reward system are not growing similarly.
Tasha Day:
Surel. Entrepreneurship is a key part of what you do; it is also in your job title. I know that we are talking not just about the colloquial understanding of entrepreneurship, but also about entrepreneurial thinking and doing and building agency.
Would you be able to tell me how the university nurtures this entrepreneurial mindset, both in its researchers, its educators and its students?
Freek van Muiswinkel:
I will start with the students, because they are probably our future change agents. We have realised that putting more entrepreneurial skills into that community, in all the faculties, might be helpful at the end, to connect better to the labor markets, to be honest, but also to the grand challenges.
So, we started growing entrepreneurial modules in the curricula, which took some time. Also, the one responsible for that had to convince not only the students, but also the staff of those faculties, to contribute to their programs with their ideas about entrepreneurial skills in their context, which may be different depending on the faculty. But we have gone there, and we have now stabilised a large percentage of students that get entrepreneurial modules.
Then, it also took some time to facilitate the real entrepreneurial spirit in the whole of the university. And again, it is about giving the right freedom to people and time to invest in entrepreneurial ideas. But also, there is some extra money available to give to those people who are really front runners and have the strengths and ideas to start their enterprise. So that extra money can help them achieve their entrepreneurial ideas first.
Then, we hand them over to the Knowledge Transfer Office and perhaps to regional subsidy schemes. Giving some extra money to those that like to be entrepreneurial is good, and then of course you have people doing a good job, which can then be role models for the rest of the community.
Tasha Day:
Absolutely. You have these kinds of internal and cross-disciplinary initiatives. I actually was also involved in the Mixed Classroom at Utrecht University a couple years ago. It was really great by the way, if anyone is interested in joining. But then you also have other large-scale national collaborations, such as Foodvalley.
Would you be able to talk to me about how the process of setting up such a collaboration goes?
Freek van Muiswinkel:
For those not familiar with the Netherlands, we already had large programs, public, private and mission-orientated economic programs. So, they were economically driven in a way, but then the Dutch government realised that the really broader prosperity for a region might be a little bit more than only economic value; it is also the societal value.
So, they came up with a scheme, which is called Regional Deals and allows a government from a certain area of the Netherlands to come forward with an idea that is helpful for their region. And so, we got into Foodvalley together with the province of Gelderland and another academic institution, Wageningen University. Both universities were sort of the scientific engine in a five-year program, trying to see how we could change the way we grow the food in the Foodvalley, but also how we eat the food. So, healthy feed and food were going hand in hand there, and it had to do with the agricultural industry, but also with people having a healthier lifestyle.
So, we came into this process, but it was a balancing act, to be honest, because the policy makers, and their policy, would like to see answers within one year, maybe two or three, while we were looking for evidence-based knowledge to support whatever direction the region would go.
And that takes time. So, we were struggling a little bit trying to find out how we could do a short cycling innovation process while at the same time we were doing long-term cohort studies, for example, in the population.
I am laughing, but we were very successful, for those who are interested, in finding each other in the middle. We were able to steer a little bit thanks to more short-term outputs, so the people living in our region could really follow what the academics were doing. And sometimes the farmers, for example, had really hands-on advice to change the way they do their farming.
So, it is possible, but we are sometimes looking back at the spirit of “Oh, it was difficult to connect all the interests of everybody”, not to talk about the politics involved.
We learn from that, of course, since it is learning by doing. It is a successful instrument for Dutch government, by the way. So, we are proud that we could take part in that.
Tasha Day:
Absolutely. It seems like a really impactful initiative. And these kinds of opportunities, whether it is a national government led opportunity or a small-scale collaboration with someone in the local area, how do you keep up with new opportunities for collaboration from the university’s perspective?
Freek van Muiswinkel:
In general, we like to see our people from all the faculties outside a little more, so we are joining regional and national congresses and meetings, so that it is more by serendipity that we hear what is happening and what the needs of society are at large. But we also have positions on the Economic Board of Utrecht, where we see the corporate companies and municipality and the province talking about the long-term future of our region. There, we can really make agendas together, which is very helpful.
Then, all the municipalities in our region send their directors to a board meeting where we have short-term discussions about what the need for tomorrow is. And, as a university, we have people in these committees as well to listen out, but also to contribute to the discussion.
For example, where is the labor market going? We have academics looking at the future of labor. Then, of course, the policy makers in the province are also aware of these discussions, for their policies and to try to learn from us. So, it is a very natural process, but lots of being there and boots on the ground outside the campus.
Tasha Day:
Absolutely. I think that is a really good way to do it. That is also actually how Freek and I met as well, as we were both attending a conference in Brussels. So, I agree, getting out of the office and meeting people really makes these connections happen.
Freek van Muiswinkel:
And also, of course, the connection between universities or between companies. So, we sort of mix the networks a little bit, so we trust on networks that are already there. Most of the time we only connect with them with the handouts, shake hands and say, “We can help you out with some of the trouble”.
But we also need them to feed our educational programs with real-life problems of the business community, for example, and what is happening in society. So, we have a mutual interest in connecting to each other.
Tasha Day:
Yeah, a bit of symbiosis is going on. It is always good.
Freek van Muiswinkel:
The students ask for this, as the board does of course, because it is helpful.
Most of the time our new generation of students don’t like being in old-fashioned classrooms anymore. They like community-engaged learning.
They like to be in “consultancy projects”, which have done a scientific background, but they work for the companies in the region, and they like that a lot.
Tasha Day:
I was a student not too many years ago and these programs all sound exciting to me. So, I think indeed the students are happy.
Freek van Muiswinkel:
They are also pushing us to the right directions to open science.
Tasha Day:
Brilliant. What advice would you give to someone working in a university who wants to embody this ethos of collaboration and entrepreneurship? What kind of first steps can they take?
Freek van Muiswinkel:
This might be a little strange to say, but I think that they have to dare to sail on the rough water. Go out where nobody has gone before as a university, from the academic perspective. So, I once explained to a colleague that I am going to meetings, especially the ones I have no knowledge about. And they were like, “What are you doing there?” and I said, “Well, that is why I go there”. Then, you come back, and you see all kinds of connections. So, a little bit of outside-in and then get out there.
Some of the professionals in a university, which is quite a big institution in our case, have very established positions, and they are a little bit set about their working environment may be, or about the job they have done for many years.
I have lots of very enthusiastic discussions about careers and I motivate people to steer away from your own job and look at somewhere else in the university context, where you might find a job that fits you better. Sometimes, people find themselves in this valorisation domain and are very busy, but also happy with that.
So, I would also advocate to look at yourself sometimes and have a look around. Maybe your position is not an academic position anymore, but more an in-between position, and there is lots of work to do nowadays.
So, if I had to give some advice, I would say, “Look around, look outside”. Maybe you start working with municipality, even with an academic background, and then help the municipality to connect better to the science that is out there. There are lots of things going on.
Tasha Day:
Absolutely. Dipping your feet into both academia and industry and boundary spanning, as we call it, and bringing people together, I think is really important and exciting.
Freek van Muiswinkel:
That is an important role. I read somewhere that there was also something called “cognitive spillovers”.
So, all those academics are producing lots of knowledge, but it is like a spillover situation, where somebody on the other side has to catch all this knowledge and put it into reality.
So, I would advise people to have a look outside as well.
Tasha Day:
Absolutely. After this conversation, I am going to start attending meetings that have nothing to do with me then.
And so, Freek, my last question to you it is a big one. What is your hope for the future of higher education?
And I have also written a note to you, Freek, in preparation for this, that this can be as wacky or as practical as you like. It can take either direction, or both.
Freek van Muiswinkel:
Well, the world is full of hopes, but for universities in particular, in my opinion. I think that we have to agree first that we are in a changing landscape. Not just in the geopolitical situation, but also how society perceives universities is changing rapidly. That is the reality.
So, I hope that everybody finds a new position for the university, or for the higher educational institutes in general, which is more stable and maybe we find ourselves at a different position in society where that might be true. So, I hope that not only do we find stable positions, again, which might be context-dependent in different countries, but also that we are open for change, because there are some arguments that we as a university maybe have to change as well.
For all kinds of reasons, I would like people to be open to change in that respect. And for us in Utrecht, we have now stated that we are an Open Science University in all aspects. That gives some direction, at least for everybody inside in our university. I am very hopeful to contribute to such a mission.
I hope everybody finds their mission and position, but these are challenging times.
Tasha Day:
Absolutely, very challenging and scary times. But I am happy that we are both trying to be there, facilitating universities to be able to seize the opportunities and help people to have the agency that they need to be able to survive and thrive, and hopefully build a kind of future that we would all really like to live in.
Freek van Muiswinkel:
Sure. I agree.
Tasha Day:
Nice. Thank you, Freek!
If you liked this session, we would love to hear your feedback from the community on these events and what you would like to see more of. We also have a range of more long form events, such as workshops, how-to sessions… as well as training programs, where you can learn practical skills to apply in your own work.
Also, UIIN members get complimentary access and discounts on these services. So, you can head to our website and see how we can help you with this. We also have the UIIN Conference coming up next month. It is the 10th to the 12th of June at Meervart Theater in Amsterdam. You can also head to our website to check that out.
I am going to be there, and I am hoping that Freek will be there as well, despite his busy schedule, but it would be lovely to be able to connect with some of you there.
Freek, where can people find out more about Utrecht’s work in the areas of entrepreneurship, impact and partnerships? And where can they get in contact with you if they want to hear more?
Freek van Muiswinkel:
Ready for more?
For many years, university-industry collaboration focused on the dynamics of commercialisation, neglecting activities with less tangible outcomes but with equally relevant impact. On our brief, More than commercialisation: Understanding university engagement, we explore the various forms of university engagement, examining the core processes that drive their impact: technology transfer, knowledge transfer and valorisation.
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