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The subsidy scheme VIS in higher education aims to provide as many students at Dutch higher education institutions as possible with the opportunity to gain experience in an international orientation on subjects and science through virtual international collaborative projects (VIS projects). In these projects, students in the Netherlands collaborate with students at institutions abroad to jointly execute a project. The subsidy scheme will finance a total of 700 projects between September 2021 and September 2024 to support the design and development of the project.
At the end of 2021, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science commissioned Dialogic to conduct evaluative research on the VIS projects (see here for the description of this research). In this research, we monitor the VIS projects through analyses of the subsidy applications and online surveys among project leaders (teachers and/or educationalists) and participating students. An interim report is delivered annually in October, outlining the research progress.
For the 2024 report, the first six cohorts (September 2021, February 2022, September 2022, February 2023, September 2023, and February 2024) have been examined. A total of 454 VIS projects have been financed to date. Of these, the project leader survey has been completed for 277 projects, with 302 projects being finalised. The report describes the 454 projects based on their subsidy applications, the 277 projects based on the online survey among project leaders, and the 302 completed projects based on the student surveys.
In Round 1, collaboration is taking place with institutions from 31 different countries. This number has doubled each year to 62 different countries in Round 6. For all rounds, the main focus of partnerships is in North America and Europe. A total of 403 institutions in Europe, 106 in Asia, 68 in North America, 67 in Africa, 40 in Central and South America, and 7 in Oceania have collaborated over the past six rounds. In total, institutions in the Caribbean have participated in eight VIS projects. The figure below shows the twenty countries with which collaboration has been most prominent.
The development of international competencies is mapped out using the student surveys. Students report a significant progress in all categories, as shown in the figure below.
The majority of students state that they did not face any challenges during the project. The most mentioned challenges are a lack of time for the project, and a poor working relationship with the international partner(s).
Download the interim report 2024 here. Want to know more? Ask Max Kemman or email visonderzoek@dialogic.nl.