The academic year can be smarter.

The workload and study pressure at Dutch universities are high. In recent years, the Minister of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) has made efforts to create 'peace and space'. The Young Academy argues in its report A Smarter Academic Year (2021) that the length and structure of the academic year in the Netherlands is one of the factors contributing to the high workload. According to the Young Academy, the academic year at Dutch universities is long and full; including exam weeks, the year is on average nine weeks longer than at comparable universities in the EU (+UK). The Ministry of OCW has commissioned Dialogic (lead partner), Oberon, and CHEPS to conduct an in-depth analysis of the academic year elsewhere in Europe at comparable universities and its impact on study and work pressure. This research has provided more insight into what Dutch universities can learn from other European universities in terms of creating more peace and space in the academic year. In this study, we compared five Dutch programmes with equivalents at five European universities. From these comparisons, we identified general and discipline-specific good practices with a positive effect on reducing study or work pressure, where no negative side effects were observed (including on educational quality). Based on these good practices, we proposed options for redesigning Dutch programmes. Finally, we tested these redesign options at Dutch programmes to identify implementation challenges and how to mitigate them. Based on the results, we made several recommendations, including:

• Reduce the number of educational weeks, provided quality standards can still be met.
• Consider suboptimal pedagogical-didactic choices if they reduce work pressure.
• Create periods of rest around exam periods, allowing students enough time to prepare for exams and recover afterwards.

The outcomes of the research were reported to OCW in early 2025.