SURF Education Award awarded to Ulrike Wild and colleague education innovators
Ulrike Wild of Wageningen University & Research is one of the five education professionals in the Netherlands who have received today an SURF Education Award. The awards for their contributions to innovation in education both within the Netherlands and beyond, were presented during the online edition of SURF Education Days 2020. The laureates received their awards from Christien Bok, Education Innovation Manager at SURF.
The Director of Educational Innovation at Wageningen University & Research, Ulrike Wild, is in charge of the programme for more flexible education and the open and online education programme. She is committed to national cooperation in the field of flexible education in the Acceleration Plan as joint lead of the Acceleration Zone ‘Making education more flexible’ as well as within the strategic alliance between WUR, TU Eindhoven, Utrecht University and UMC Utrecht. Ulrike is committed to eradicating legal, technical and organisational barriers that stand in the way of flexibility. SURF on Ulrike Wild: “Ulrike has tremendous power, thinks big and is never afraid to say what needs saying. Ulrike believes in action to move things forward, and she knows how to motivate the right people at every level of the organisation to achieve it”. Ther other award winners are Eric Slaats (Fontys Universities of Applied Sciences), Marja Verstelle (Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities), Robert Schuwer (Fontys Universities of Applied Sciences), and Willem van Valkenburg (TU Delft).
The five winners were given the news of their award in a surprise video call in which Christien Bok presented them with the SURF Education Awards 2020. Their enthusiastic reactions can be seen in a video (see column on the right) which was unveiled to hundreds of participants on the first day of SURF Education Days. “What is incredibly impressive is to see how these five individuals have worked tirelessly for many years, generously sharing their knowledge and commitment with others and achieving so much. For me, it is a tremendous honour to present them with their award on behalf of SURF,” says Bok.
Since 2015, SURF has presented its annual awards to people in the education community (vocational education & training, higher professional education, and university education) who are committed to educational innovation using ICT.