'Met een schone lei beginnen ...'

Profilering en uitbouw van de Universiteit Maastricht

Samenvatting

On 9 January 1976 the State University of Limburg, today Maastricht University, officially came into being, with the start of a medical faculty. It was expected to promote innovation within Dutch higher education by developing experimental degree programmes – which explains ‘the Maastricht experiment’. Nowadays the university counts six Faculties and more than 16,000 students, over half of whom are from outside the Netherlands. The fact that Maastricht University was established ex nihilo seemed to be advantage, because it could start with a clean slate. In this article two questions are addressed. What was the rationale behind the foundation of Maastricht University and how did Maastricht University stress its distinct features while it was expanding? In this article is shown that the start with a clean slate was in fact impossible. Moreover, the expansion is analysed based on six phases. Maastricht University found a distinctive character in the Dutch univer- sity system with problem-based learning and internationalization, while pragmatism was an important ruiling guide during its expansion.