The ITC (International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation) in Enschede will keep its `brand' and will receive the desired ranking of university status through its merger with the UT.
Joint benefits are to be expected through the recruiting and selecting of international students, and the procedural aspects of this process.
This is in a written statement that the boards of both institutions have agreed upon in which the merger's strategic aspects and the future administrative model are described. The Supervisory Board of the UT has agreed upon the proposed integration last week. As of the agreement date, the ITC will be completely embedded within the UT at an administrative and organisational level as a faculty sui generis (in which the specific aspects of the institute are guaranteed), and the formal transfer of all ITC activities and employees to the UT will take place. The estimated 240 employees will be employed by the UT. It means that they will fall under the Collective Labor Agreement of the university personnel, with the accompanying salary scales and employment conditions. The faculty of ITC will have its own research departments, even though it can be placed under one of the existing UT research institutes by mutual agreement. The planning of education at the ITC is allowed to differ from the system at the UT.
The memo also states that the new faculty will be incorporated in the new organizational structure of the UT: `to be determined task,' that still falls under the ITC and will be transferred in the long term to the consultation board and service center. The ITC mission statement will be assimilated in the UT's strategic plan, including the academic domain of the ITC. The director of the new faculty will not be called dean but rector.
According to the memo, the ITC for the last decade has profiled itself as a center of excellence in the field of Geo-information Sciences and Earth Observation. Both parties involved anticipate `excellent prospects' to extend the current and future cooperation and build strategic options. The ITC could target the Dutch and European markets along with its traditional (international) market. Ninety percent of ITC students originate from Africa, Asia and Latin America. In the memo, a joint market strategy that is aimed at countries like Vietnam, China and India is mentioned. Saxion Hogescholen (Saxion university of professional education) could play an important role in this matter.
