Before presenting the progress per theme, we will first delve into the rationale behind this overarching SSH-sectorplan, which you can refer to from page 244 of this document (in Dutch).
Background
The digital transition offers great opportunities, such as finding innovative solutions to societal challenges, increasing the effectiveness of the public sector and strengthening competitiveness.
However, this transition also raises fundamental questions. Who will be able to keep up? How do we handle decision-making and judgment regarding its effects on security, the rule of law, democracy and human and fundamental rights?
What do we want to achieve?
The challenge is to make the most of the opportunities presented by the digital transition while preventing negative effects. We aim to accelerate and strengthen responsible digitalization through innovative research.
This sectorplan works on renewing our education system accordingly, ensuring that today’s students are well-prepared for these developments. This will accelerate innovation within the SSH domain, which is necessary to better align with the rapidly changing labor market for graduates and participants in lifelong learning programs. Where possible and appropriate, researchers and educators collaborate with various professional fields and society at large.
The researchers that have been appointed on the sectorplan come from different disciplines and existing interdisciplinary networks. They experiment with new partnerships and learn from each other. The universities are stimulated to make choices on their thematic focus as well as on collaborations. The sectorplan’s contribution primarily lies in fostering better connections, strengthening the foundation, and stimulating new collaborations. Societal challenges remain central in all of this.
Approach
In 2022, each university selected one or two societal themes within this sectorplan, on which researchers were appointed. This decision fostered collaboration with other universities that chose the same theme—sometimes to strengthen existing networks, sometimes to build entirely new connections.
Universities defined what they aim to achieve during the sectorplans’ duration. Each university has a coordinator and ample flexibility to tailor implementation to their local environment and strategy. The coordinators meet regularly to align their efforts, make decisions, and inspire each other. The national coordinator facilitates these meetings with support from the SSH office. Regular meetings and events are also organised by the UNL programme Digital Society (DiSa programme).
Progress
The researchers have been appointed, and the research groups working on a theme have found ways to connect within each university. Since different disciplines operate in different ways, and not everyone was previously in contact, this has sometimes been a learning process.
In the summer of 2024, the first introductions took place with the evaluation committee Sectorplan SSH to assess progress and discuss the ambitions. From September 2024, the thematic groups intensified their contact and thus their collaborations across universities. In February 2025, a national meeting was organized by the UNL Digital Society program. Involved researchers showcased developments in other themes and strengthened their networks. On November 20th 2025, the annual DiSa-conference took place, where all themes of the sector plan organised their own sessions.
Midterm evaluation 2025-2026
In 2025, the self-evaluations for the mid-term review were submitted. The main findings are:
- The connection between the coordinators, who now know each other well and maintain close contact with each other, creates synergy and unity at the national level that would not have been possible on this scale without the sectorplan.
- The SSH-council facilitates and embeds national cooperation through strong links and collaboration with the existing Digital Society programme. All sectorplan assistant professors are affiliated with the DiSa programme and are invited to all events. This ensures that the theme lines are aware of each other, so that synergy can also be created there. Interested researchers who are not directly part of the sector plan can also join.
- Aside from the initially identified sub-themes of the sectorplan, several additional themes have popped up, cutting across the existing sub-themes. One theme such as this is misinformation and disinformation (UvA, UM, UU, TiU (medical misinformation), LEI). Several universities are also active on the theme of digital autonomy and digital inclusion and exclusion. These additional cross-cutting themes would not have been identified if not for the regular meetings and established connections the sectorplan has brought about.
Progress per theme
In implementing this plan, universities are working on one or two of the following five sub-themes from the perspective of digitalization:
