Benelux’ Faculties of Economics and Business come together to discuss the implications of AI on education

All the Faculties of Economics & Business in the Netherlands, and of KU Leuven and Ghent University, gathered last week Friday 1 March in Utrecht to discuss the implications of AI in higher education. DEB (Deans’ Consultation Economics & Business) supported the conference, Utrecht University was the host, and the organizing team consisted of members from the University of Groningen, KU Leuven and the University of Amsterdam.

The conference was kicked off by Manda Broekhuis (Vice Dean of Education of the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen), and followed up by presentations by Menno van Doorn (VINT-Sogeti, and author of ‘Real Fake’); Frank Zandhuis (University of Groningen and 1 Giant Leap Solutions) and Duuk Baten of SURF. The conference participants were representatives from programme management, examination boards, educational quality, as well as policy makers and lecturers. The speakers took the participants on a journey, first looking at the wider possibilities of AI, then touching upon the implications of AI for the future jobs of our graduates, and finally looking at AI’s implications for our education itself. The presentations were followed by a panel discussion led by Hans Risselada (University of Groningen).

The afternoon of the conference consisted of two workshop rounds with workshops on different aspects relating to AI: teaching, assessment, impact on learning outcomes, and policy.  Lien Castelein (KU Leuven), Steven Huyghe (KU Leuven), Ben Bewersdorf (University College Groningen) and Frank Benneker (University of Amsterdam) led these workshops, raising valuable questions for the participants to reflect on and discuss with colleagues across different universities.

Ensuring the resilience of our education

FEB Vice Dean Manda Broekhuis looks back on a successful conference and emphasizes the importance of monitoring and discussing AI’s implications. “We don’t yet know the full impact of AI on our education. This makes it of utmost importance to appropriately manage the processes towards proper integration of AI in our education, and to ensure the resilience of our programmes. We have a challenging time ahead, but it was clear from the feedback of the participants that such a conference was timely and very helpful in moving forward as a sector. Even though we are sometimes competitors, we also are able to come together and cooperate to address issues that affect us all.”