Nursing science in The Netherlands: the Utrecht contribution

The two goals of a 5-year nursing science project at the State University of Utrecht were the establishment of graduate nursing science studies and a nursing research programme. The project formally started on 1 January 1987 and is now nearing completion. This paper builds on a paper previously published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing. It first describes the history of nursing science in The Netherlands and sets out to demonstrate how the Utrecht goals were achieved.