Creative international networking towards academic nursing education and research in The Netherlands

This article describes the changes occurring in nursing education in The Netherlands. The key factors influencing this process are addressed. Nurse education in The Netherlands still takes place mainly in hospital schools of nursing. In 1972 an important innovation was realized when the first two undergraduate nursing education programmes were started within institutions for higher education. Today there are 18 such programmes in the country and since 1980 there is also one graduate programme at the University of Maastricht. Another major event occurred in 1986 when the University of Utrecht and the local School for Higher Education together initiated the development of a graduate programme in nursing education. A collaborative master's degree course was created with the University of Wales, United Kingdom. Meanwhile, three Dutch universities have joined efforts and are presently working together with regional schools for higher professional education on a national plan. The aims are to establish (part-time) master and doctoral degree programmes in nursing and academic nursing research within the next few years.