Frequently Asked Questions

The Utrecht Network is a representative European-wide network of universities cooperating in the area of internationalisation. Though broadly-based, the network remains highly selective in its membership in order to retain a manageable scale and flexibility of action. The number of members will be limited. Membership is only open to universities in European countries, in principle one university per country, though exceptions to this rule can be made at the discretion of the General Meeting. The aim of achieving a balanced representation from across Europe will be kept in mind when considering new members. Potential new members can be nominated by members of the Utrecht Network or they can nominate themself.

The General Meeting of the Utrecht Network may take into account the following criteria to accept a new member:
- a comprehensive range of disciplines
- state recognition for delivery of degrees
- an emphasis on internationalization and a strong central unit dealing with international affairs
- broad mobility
- waiver of tuition of fees on exchanges with Utrecht Network partners
- an effective student support service.

Part of the admission process for a new member will be a site visit, to be carried out by a minimum of two persons from member universities of the Utrecht Network, at least one of whom must be a member of the Steering Committee. Such a site visit may include more than one potential member university in the particular country. After their return from the site visit the delegation will prepare and submit to the Steering Committee a report with recommendations. The Steering Committee will discuss this report, and on the basis of this discussion decide whether to make a formal proposal of membership to the General Meeting. The final decision about membership is made by the Genral Meeting at its annula meeting.

;-)
This is not the common type of questions about the Utrecht Network. However, there is a lot of social activity in the Utrecht Network.
At an Utrecht Network dinner this question has been discussed intensively, without getting to a clear answer.

Wikipedia says: The word "vegetable" is a culinary term, not a botanical term. The word "fruit" on the other hand can be a culinary term or a botanical term. Botanically speaking, fruits are fleshy reproductive organs of plants, the ripened ovaries containing one or many seeds. Thus, many botanical fruits are not edible at all, and some are actually extremely poisonous. In a culinary sense however, the word "fruit" is only applied to those botanical fruits which are edible, and which are considered to be a sweet or dessert food such as strawberries, peaches, plums, etc. In contrast to this, a number of edible botanical fruits, including the tomato, the eggplant, and the bell pepper are not considered to be a sweet or dessert food, are not routinely used with sugar, but instead are almost always used as part of a savory dish, and are salted. This is the reason that they are labeled as "vegetables". A plant part may scientifically referred to as a "fruit", even though it is used in cooking or food preparation as a vegetable. The question "The tomato: is it a fruit, or is it a vegetable?" found its way into the United States Supreme Court in 1893. The court ruled unanimously in Nix v. Hedden that a tomato is correctly identified as, and thus taxed as, a vegetable, for the purposes of the 1883 Tariff Act on imported produce. The court acknowledged that botanically speaking, a tomato is a fruit.