Impact as our mission
Creating positive societal impact is our mission as set out by the EUR Strategy 2024. Launched in 2019, it firmly set us on a transition to becoming an impact-driven university. In realising our vision for the future, we developed a common framework for our impact strategies. This general framework serves as a guide for how we approach our impact ambitions, leaving room for choices that cater to the many impact identities and traditions we have across the university.
As EUR, we have positive societal impact if, through our teaching, research, or societal engagement, we make a (sustainable) contribution to a better understanding of societal issues, possible approaches to dealing with these issues, or the collective ability to develop and apply these approaches.
In our definition, you see our collective approach to impact – we do this together as EUR. We also make clear that impact results from our three core activities as a leading knowledge institution: impact is not separate but stems from our excellent teaching, research, and (societal) engagement. We recognise that we are part of a wider knowledge ecosystem, which we are embedded in and connected to, and to which we (aim to sustainably) contribute. Finally, we acknowledge the impact we aim for is diverse, and that no one form of impact is more valuable or more important than another.
The framework recognises that societal impact is not always foreseeable in advance, but that our impact ambitions benefit from a more conscious and purposeful approach. All EUR Schools are defining their own school-wide impact ambition and associated strategy and to shape their own impact governance to deliver on our ambitions. Given the crucial role of societal engagement, our university is also organising its engagement portfolio. The Strategic Dean Impact & Engagement is newly appointed from April 2024, and Erasmus Research Services became Engagement & Research Services in July 2024. The department has become even more than a research support organisation – it is now a facilitator for research and engagement.
