Tilburg University (Universiteit van Tilburg), situated in Tilburg, the Netherlands, was founded in 1927. It was originally a School of Economics. It is now a fully-accredited government financed university with almost 10,000 students. Tilburg University specialises in the social sciences and humanities and has five faculties: Economics and Business Administration, Law, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Philosophy, and Arts. An independent Faculty of Theology is affiliated with the university. Within these faculties 19 degree programmes are offered, some of which have an interdisciplinary character.
The faculties of Economics and Business Administration, Law, and Social and Behavioural Sciences are the oldest faculties of Tilburg University. The faculties of Philosophy and Arts were both launched in the early 1980s. A number of new degree programmes such as Labour and Social Security Studies, Leisure Studies, Personnel Management Sciences and Policy and Organisation Studies were added to the faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences in the eighties. These programmes are unique in the Netherlands and are attuned to developments taking place in society. One distinctive feature of these programmes is their multidisciplinary character. Relatively new programmes are European Law and International Business.
Tilburg University is a dynamic university with top-level research and excellent education programmes developed according to a special educational model called 'Student-Oriented Education' (Student Gericht Onderwijs). This model is characterised by instruction in study groups, the organisation of existing courses as a series of study tasks, and room for individual responsibility and independence. Each study task is concluded with an academic assignment that is characteristic of the discipline. The emphasis in SCI is on the independent, self-disciplined work of the students. SCI has been implemented in all of the faculties of Tilburg University.
