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Utrecht University

Overview

Utrecht University (UU; Dutch: Universiteit Utrecht, formerly Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht) is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established 26 March 1636 (1636-03-26), it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2025, it had an enrollment of 38,493 students, and employed 8,846 faculty members and staff. More than 600 PhD degrees were awarded and 9,071 scientific articles were published. The university's 2025 budget was €3 billions, consisting of €1.272 billion for the university (income from work commissioned by third parties is 368 million euros) and €1.759 billion for the University Medical Center Utrecht.

The university's interdisciplinary research targets life sciences, pathways to sustainability, dynamics of youth, and institutions for open societies. Utrecht University is led by the University Board, consisting of Wilco Hazeleger (Rector Magnificus), Anton Pijpers (chair), Margot van der Starre (Vice Chair) and Niels Vreeswijk (Student Assessor). Close ties are harboured with other institutions internationally through its membership in the Coimbra Group (CG), the League of European Research Universities (LERU), the Utrecht Network and the European University Association (EUA).

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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In the first place, then, hardness may be rejected, because if the stone were liquefied or reduced to powder, it would no longer possess hardness, and yet would not cease to be a body; colour also may be thrown out of account, because we have frequently seen stones so transparent as to have no colour; again, we may reject weight, because we have the case of fire, which, though very light, is still a body; and…
René Descartes, Selections from the Principles of Philosophy
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In this way they cause the whole heart to expand, and at the same time press home and shut the five small valves that are at the entrances of the two vessels from which they flow, and thus prevent any more blood from coming down into the heart, and becoming more and more rarefied, they push open the six small valves that are in the orifices of the other two vessels, through which they pass out, causing in this way…
René Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences
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And thus, while claiming the title of Universal, it never reached the working classes, even in Protestant countries, where each believer became to a certain extent his own priest. The theological method being obsolete, and the metaphysical method inadequate, the task of founding an efficient system of popular education belongs to Positivism; the only doctrine capable of reconciling these two orders of conditions…
Auguste Comte, A General View of Positivism Or, Summary exposition of the System of Thought and Life
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Utrecht University

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