published: 17-10-2018
A University in a given region leads to all sorts of extra economic and social effects.
Students. teachers, and other staff head towards a given region to work or study, and the regional businesses and housing market also profit. This is a fairly reasonable conclusion, but what is the exact scope of a university’s impact? What does a university actually generate in terms of social and economic impact?
This question was posed by the Maastricht University in the south of the Netherlands. This question formed the basis for an economic impact analysis for the University, which Panteia was commissioned to carry out. The study involved looking at both the direct and indirect economic effects of the University on both the city and the broader region. The region of Maastricht is a border region, and forms an interesting case for analysis as a significant portion of the students, workers, good and services go abroad or come from Germany and Belgium. Using an input-output analysis, together with data provided by the University itself, and international data from EUROSTAT and the World Input Output Data[INVALID], our study examined the direct and indirect economic impacts on the city of Maastricht and the greater region.
De total value of the good and services produced by the University directly amounted to more than 375 million euro in 2016. Taking the indirect effects as well, which consist of the expenditures by students, investments by the University, and the expenditures by employees of the University, the total impact of the UM on the region was more than 1.1 billion euro in 2016. In this same year the University also led to 7,984 direct and indirect jobs.
Further findings can be found in Maastricht University’s brochure “Our impact on Maastricht, Europe and the world”