Why this conference?
Although we see many innovative initiatives throughout the Netherlands and Belgium, interdisciplinary education has yet to become part of the mainstream in higher education. In order to fully integrate knowledge from various disciplines and obtain a more complete understanding of our complex society in transition, we need a new approach to education. Therefore, the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) of the University of Amsterdam, started to build an active interdisciplinary education network in the Netherlands (and the rest of the world) to be able to combine forces, and define the standards of Interdisciplinary Education together. This resulted, among other things, in the idea of hosting the first National Interdisciplinary Education (NIE) conference on February 2nd, 2017, for all academic universities, and applied universities of The Netherlands – and Belgium. The conference was hosted by 4TU in 2018. In 2019, Utrecht University hosts the third National Interdisciplinary Education conference. in 2022 Maastricht University will host the 4th edition on interdisciplinary and global citizenship.