Summary conference undergraduate research

The conference on undergraduate research in Middelburg, 27-28 August 2009, was jointly organised by the VSNU, Maastricht University and Roosevelt Academy. It explored the opportunities of undergraduate research from the perspective of students, lecturers and administrators.
In three workshop rounds, students and their supervisors presented undergraduate research projects and reflected on their experiences. The range of topics - from 17th century music to aerospace engineering - reflected the various possibilities of employing undergraduate research as an educational model. Students related their experiences in doing research and emphasised the role of undergraduate research in familiarising students with research.
In their keynote addresses, prominent international and Dutch university administrators gave their views on undergraduate research. Angela Brewer, Professorial Fellow in the Learning an Teaching Centre at Macquarie University of Sidney, Australia, spoke about the implementation of undergraduate research in Australia. Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University, said that undergraduate research used to mean carrying out pre-defined research assignments resembling cooking recipes. As undergraduate research is understood now, Bok said, students help professors in resolving scientific and community problems. He also suggested that there should be more pressure on lecturers to introduce new methods of learning, given that their positive effect on learning has amply been demonstrated.
Robbert Dijkgraaf, president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, in a similar vein pointed out that doing research is a much more effective way of learning. Therefore every Bachelor student should be able to gain experience in undergraduate research, Dijkgraaf suggested. Moreover, he said that there should be more ways of publishing the results of undergraduate research.
Sijbolt Noorda, president of the VSNU, summarised the benefits of undergraduate research: it enables Bachelor students to participate actively in scientific research, giving them first-hand experience; it makes for a more intensive learning experience and makes learning more challenging; and it gives students insight into the societal relevance of doing research.
The conference in Middelburg is intended to be the first in a sequence of conferences on undergraduate research, to be held annually.

For more information on activities concerning student performance in the Bachelor phase, see here.