Why does the UvA have a holding?
Factsheet UvA Holding
UvA Holding BV enables the UvA – through participation – to create added social and economic value from teaching and research without mixing public and private funds. UvA Holding BV turns a profit that is made available to the UvA; in 2014 this profit amounted to 3.3 million euro. Moreover, UvA Holding traditionally encompasses activities geared towards students and staff.
In 1992, the former Executive Board created UvA Holding BV to consolidate commercial activities in a private legal structure, explicitly separated from teaching and research in order to prevent the mix and improper use of public funds. These concerned activities that do not belong to the university’s core tasks but are directly related to them. The UvA is sole owner of UvA Holding BV. The management and day-to-day supervision are vested in a separate holding board which is supervised by a Supervisory Board.
Over the past 23 years, the mandate of UvA Holding BV has changed in accordance with UvA policy and the demands of society. The range of services that fall under the holding has been constantly revised to meet the needs of the time. For instance, UvA Holding BV’s last real estate project was completed in 2003. During the last ten years the emphasis has been on contract research and contract teaching and on participation in and facilitation of companies that have been created on the basis of scientific research and have a commercial purpose. UvA Holding BV hereby contributes to a part of the UvA’s so-called valorisation goals. Until now, UvA Holding BV has participated in dozens of these kinds of new ventures. Profits made from patents, spin-offs and the selling of companies flow back to the university.
New ventures, contract research and contract teaching
The UvA regards it as its task to create added social and economic value (valorisation) from teaching and research – it therefore stimulates entrepreneurship among students and researchers. By helping businesses founded on UvA knowledge to become successful, UvA Holding BV contributes to economic growth in the Amsterdam area, which increases the employment prospects for UvA graduates within the region. The UvA hereby executes a part of its valorisation goals as a supplement to its primary tasks: teaching and research. The ensures a positive interaction: the university receives incentives from the market and society, and researchers and research results can contribute to smart new products and services, and to knowledge dissemination within a practical framework.
An example is the participation in Euclid Vision Technologies BV (Euvision), a search engine developed for digital imagery. Euvision has been taken over by a large multinational. Photanol BV is another company with UvA roots: it uses engineered cyanobacteria to convert CO2 into valuable organic compounds by harnessing the power of the sun. Photanol BV collaborates with large market players.
Other initiatives have a more social impact. Some 200,000 users – young and old – currently practice their numeracy and language skills online with ‘Rekentuin’ games and Oefenweb.nl BV, a UvA spin-off. UvA minds BV is an academic treatment centre for parents and children that offers evidence-based treatments for psychological problems, stimulates scientific research within a clinical setting and trains science practitioners. The Kohnstamm Institute UvA BV – which specialises in contract research in the field of education, child rearing and child welfare – also forms part of UvA Holding BV.
Services
Together, new ventures and contract research and contract teaching form the bulk of the activities of UvA Holding BV. In addition, a number of services geared towards the UvA and its staff and students, fall within the holding: UvA JobService BV (secondment of academic and support staff at the UvA), ProActief UvA BV (career guidance for academics), Mercator Sapiens BV (the UvA shop: UvA merchandising), Amsterdam University Press BV (non-fiction publisher) and the independent language centre UvA Talen BV. As explained, this broad range of services is the result of the holding’s policy in conjunction with UvA policy over the last 23 years. Some of the services have been let go of during this period, others have remained or have been newly developed.
Real estate
The same – a result of policy over the last two decades – goes for projects that fall into the last category of activities within UvA Holding BV, activities in the field of real estate. These activities started at the end of 1994 with the creation of the Amsterdam Academic Club. In the following years, the real estate subsidiary refurbished two of the UvA’s former warehouses on the Prinsengracht into apartments and was responsible for the project management of 8 guest houses in a building in the Voetboogstraat. These projects were previously completed and finished. Moreover, in 1995 seven historical buildings in the Nieuwe Doelenstraat and the Oude Turfmarkt were renovated into Hotel Résidence le Coin, a hotel that provides short-term and long-term residential/work lodgings (with a discount for UvA guests and aumni), is property of the UvA and is managed by UvA Holding BV. It is primarily used by guest lecturers and researchers.
At the of the 1990s. the restoration/renovation of the UvA buildings Herengracht 514-516 were done. Since 2003, these buildings are rented to third parties as office space. In 2002 the last real estate initiative of UvA Holding BV on the corner of Roetersstraat/Sarphatistraat – practically the corner of the Roeterseiland – was completed. This delivered 4,500 m2 of office space (now primarily used by UvA Holding BV and its subsidiaries), 2,000 m2 retail space and 34 apartments (that have meanwhile for the larger part already been sold). Since 2003, no new real estate initiatives have been taken under the banner of UvA Holding BV.
In recent years, UvA Holding BV has explicitly focused on the development of fruitful new ventures and valuable services with a social impact. This is in line with the role that the university currently wants – and is expected – to play in society.