PREMIUM Clients
A True PREMIUM Project Must:
be a challenge, have relevance, and pushes students out of their comfort zone;
allow for students to have enough own input in the project and its deliverable, to foster creativity and innovation.
call for an innovative solution;
allow and facilitate an interdisciplinary approach;
require an investment of 150 hours per student;
be flexible enough to expand or simplify, if necessary.
PREMIUM offers:
Against limited investment a complex assignment is carried out by excellent, well-prepared master’s students under the supervision of a project mentor (a UM employee).
Each student commits to a workload of 250 hours over the course of 5 months (January-May), of which at least 150 hours are estimated to be spent on project execution. Depending on the size of the team assigned to your project, PREMIUM offers 600 to 900 hours of effort put towards your project:
- A team of 4-6 motivated master’s students assigned to your project;
- A UM employee to act as project mentor to guide students through project execution and your primary PREMIUM contact person.
- A multidisciplinary analysis of the issue;
- A blend of knowledge providing you with fresh innovative input and out-of-the-box ideas;
- The chance to invest in students by offering them a learning environment;
- The opportunity to experiment with new skills and behaviour;
- The opportunity to scout talent!
PREMIUM aims to enable students to:
- Gain valuable insight into their strengths and development areas;
- Improve their performance and competencies;
- Learn how to work as part of a multidisciplinary team;
- Learn how to work to a tight schedule;
- Learn how to manage Clients’ expectations.
In order to realize these goals and to provide Clients with the best possible outcome for their project, we would like to clearly communicate what PREMIUM has to offer as well as what we would like to receive in return from all Clients.
A PREMIUM client is expected to be involved with PREMIUM.
- Clients confirm a clear project objective and agree to the collectively set up plan for project execution;
- Clients adequately provide the student team with the necessary information for project execution;
- Students, coaches, mentors, and the PREMIUM Central Management Team would highly appreciate your presence at our central events: the Kick-Off in January, the Midterm Presentations in March, and the festive Closing Event in May.
- Clients are expected to spend approximately 2 hours per week on PREMIUM during project execution.
- Clients are required to reimburse students for any business trips/transportation fees the students are requested to do by the client.
Please note that PREMIUM is not an internship. Students do not need extensive supervision or a working space at your organization. PREMIUM students are to be seen as consultants.
For more information about PREMIUM and what we expect from an external partner, please send us a message via premium@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
PREMIUM runs every year according to more or less the same cycle. For the 2024-2025 academic year, the following is of importance to a potential PREMIUM Client:
- 30.09.2024: Deadline to send in project proposals;
- 20.10.2024: Selected projects will be advertised to recruit students for the programme;
- 18.11.2024: Deadline for students to apply for PREMIUM and indicate an initial preference for a project;
- 20.12.2024: Conclusion of student selection, and giving final go to selected projects;
- 08.01.205: Kick-Off Event “Mix & Match”, like a jobfair, where all students get to meet all the clients and indicate their final project preference;
- 09.01.25: Announcement of project teams
- 10.01.25-28.05.25: Project execution.
- 19.03.25-20.03.2025: Midterm Event
- 28.05.2025: Closing Event
What does is cost for clients to be involved in PREMIUM?
– There is no fee involved for the client. PREMIUM is an educational programme, with clear learning objectives for the students. Therefore, projects need to provide students with enough freedom to come up with innovative and out-of-the-box ideas and results. However, results are not guaranteed. We only ask your guidance throughout the project, and if you request our students to travel due to your project, we request that you cover their travel expenses.
How much time commitment is requested of me?
-There are two types of clients: A formal client provides an assignment and perceives the team of students as consultants doing a job for them. The formal client provides guidance and supports the team with feedback, but is not actively involved in project execution.
A co-creator client might join the team for brainstorm sessions, meetings, and preparatory sessions. The co-creator is more actively involved in/during the project execution. Both roles are fine, but each of them comes with a different time investment pending on your own preference and project aim.
Who has intellectual property of the project?
– Intellectual property lies with the client and our students are made aware of this.
How about confidentiality?
-We can work with a NDA that the University signs on behalf of the students. Students and Project Mentor are made aware of the stipulations in the NDA.
What makes for a good PREMIUM project?
-We select projects that are current, relevant, interesting for different disciplines, and that allow students to create impact. We look for Projects that provide students with enough freedom to negotiate the final scope and deliverable in close consultation with the client. Projects that have a very narrow defined problem statement, and also already indicate a solution and even implementation are not suitable PREMIUM projects since students learn the most from truly investigating the problem and then define their own potential best solution.
When will I know if my project is selected?
– Around mid-October we do the first selection of projects. In December however, we can give all selected projects a final confirmation that there are enough students selected among the students that applied for PREMIUM, that have showed preliminary interest in their project.
The Role of a PREMIUM Client
A client adopts the role of a more formal client or a co-creator. A formal client provides an assignment and perceives the team of students as consultants doing a job for them. A co-creator might join the team for brainstorm sessions, meetings, and preparatory sessions. The co-creator is more actively involved in/during the project execution. The formal client provides guidance and supports the team with feedback, but is not actively involved in project execution.
PREMIUM Client Testimonials
2022 was the 4th year that we as Atos have participated in the PREMIUM program. It was again a pleasure to work with you and Bas as mentors and managers of the team and the program; and this year’s team was again excellent.
5 young ambitious hard working intelligent people with a vast array of skills, combined in a consulting project for Atos to deliver a presentation and report around Digital Sovereignty.
On Atos side we have engaged a lot of people from various backgrounds and locations and the feedback from them about the team has been very positive, as well. The final presentation was well attended and well received. We hope we can continue our collaboration into next year.
Wilbert van der Kruk
Cloud Transformation Advisor
Atos
2022 was the 4th year that we as Atos have participated in the PREMIUM program. It was again a pleasure to work with you and Bas as mentors and managers of the team and the program; and this year’s team was again excellent.
The international fellowship COMMEET was founded in 2017. It aims to empower communities anywhere in the world to take their future into their own hands. Katja, Friederike, Axelle and Anna were asked to examine the internal organisation of our not-for-profit organisation, and make recommendations for improvements.
Right at the beginning, these young ladies asked us whether they could call themselves the ‘four COMMEETeers’, and this aptly sums up their enthusiastic approach.
It was a real pleasure for me to work with them. Despite Corona they kept working steadily and accurately, always keeping us informed about their progress. They did a super job: their analysis was spot-on and their recommendations extremely useful.
We are forever grateful for what they did for us and we could not have wished for a better team to help move COMMEET forward. We are fortunate that all four COMMEETeers have indicated they wish to stay involved with COMMEET!
Maarten Schrevel
Secretary
COMMEET
Being a client for PREMIUM has been a game changer for us at Key2advance. Having six outstanding Master-students contribute to our project has accelerated our progress tremendously. The professional and heartfelt organisation from the team at EDLAB has furthermore made the experience easy and enjoyable. We highly recommend any organisation that is looking for a creative way to boost their project to join!
Mona Shair-Wloch
Founding Manager & Director Key2advance
Martin van de Pas
Content Developer & Trainer Key2advance
Being a client for PREMIUM has been a game changer for us at Key2advance.
This was a great experience! Looking forward to start using the evaluation tool the students developed!
For the first time MUMC+ and ING had a joint assignment for the students: to map innovative companies and eco-systems in hospital and elderly care and to develop an assessment tool for these innovations. Despite difficult circumstances (COVID-19), they did a great job. Thanks to the entire team. Good luck with your study and next steps in career.
Raymond Smeets
Relatiemanager Gezondheidszorg en Publieke domein
ING
This was a great experience working together with ING from our health innovation lab. Looking forward to start using the evaluation tool Mika, Daniel, Anna, Clara, Danila and Maureen developed. The best part: our first meeting live at La Barceloneta! Thanks all!
Nicole van Eldik
Kinderarts en programmamanager eHealth
MUMC+
Every year, a new PREMIUM team comes to Marres to explore a project devoted to sensorial knowledge. It is a great pleasure to meet students from various disciplines, to coach them on what we know and have them teach us on their findings within their research. The projects invariably stress the importance of knowledge gained by the senses and body, and it is rewarding to see participants embrace this as part of their learning careers even though it is not part of the conventional academic curriculum. We trust that the PREMIUM experience will guide them also in future learning and careers. And we are also very proud that our teams have won several times the PREMIUM programme creativity award.
Ilse van Lieshout
hoofd educatie afdeling
Marres
It is a great pleasure to meet students from various disciplines, to coach them on what we know and have them teach us on their findings within their research.
The PREMIUM project is a great thing and can only recommend it.
The PREMIUM project is a great thing and can only recommend it. With our PREMIUM team “Helping Paws” we had a very motivated team. The collaboration was constructive and brought many new impulses and ideas. I can only recommend it for any business and non-profit organization. Thank you!
Erik Kersting
President of the European Professional Association for I-L-e-Coaches e.V.
Managing Director Dog Center Canis familiaris GmbH
Dog educator and behavioral consultant
As a company we see many interesting and trending topics passing by, however, we do not always the capacity to investigate them all. For us, the topic of personalized nutrition was an example of this. The student team did a great job on analyzing the latest research insights, documenting recent activities in this market, and performing their own field research. My colleagues appreciated the team’s final presentation at our company site and were excited to read more in their final report.
All in all, joining the PREMIUM program as a client not only resulted in useful outcomes, it was also lots of fun, and we got in contact with many motivated students during the well-organized events. We hope to join again in another edition!
Claudia Daniels
Market Research Specialist
Nunhems Netherlands BV
It was great to work together with the enthusiastic team of students, that were very motivated to dive deep into the project’s topic. As the program is multi-disciplinary, the project’s topic was analyzed from different point of views, which certainly added lots of value.
The result will assist our organization to achieve our objectives, and we will definitely try and do another project next year!
This was our first experience with a PREMIUM project, and it was very useful for our organization. We appreciated the Client Handbook, the friendly PREMIUM team and mentor, and the enthusiastic meeting to promote our project.
It was easy to work with the students, and the team did well despite the obvious Corona challenges.
The result will assist our organization to achieve our objectives, and we will definitely try and do another project next year!
Wilbert Bannenberg
Stichting Farma ter Verantwoording
UWC Maastricht has worked with a number of different PREMIUM teams over the last 5 years. We were always impressed with the professional approach and high quality of the research and delivered recommendations.
It is always refreshing to bring in a team of highly motivated master students to support us in exploring how to further improve our school.
In 2020 we were fortunate to work with an enthusiastic team that helped us to understand the impact of UWC in the city of Maastricht and how to improve our community service projects.
Iva Horejsi
UWC Maastricht
It is always refreshing to bring in a team of highly motivated master students to support us in exploring how to further improve our school.
PREMIUM Client Handbook
