Introduction

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Between October 2005 and February 2006 the Association for Low Countries Studies (ALCS) conducted a survey on the provision of Dutch in higher education institutions in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland .

The aim of this survey was to gather information on student numbers, staff and programmes available to students wishing to study Dutch at UK and Irish institutions of Higher Education. It follows an earlier survey carried out in 1992. [1]

In conjunction with this, we also asked for data on teaching and research carried out within the broader field of Low Countries Studies. By this we mean the scholarly study of the language, culture, history, politics, society, economy and geography of the Low Countries region.

A questionnaire was posted on the ALCS website in October and approximately 3000 further institutions and individuals were reached via a number of mailing lists including:

• ALCS list
• German Studies list
• Association for Language Learning
• University Council for Modern Languages
• Association of University Language Centres
• Standing Conference of Heads of Modern Languages
• Linguanet
• Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies e-bulletin December 2005.

We also gratefully acknowledge the access we were given to the database of teachers of Dutch in the UK maintained by the Education Attaché at the Royal Netherlands Embassay in London , Ms. H. van Kerkoerle.

We received responses from 42 institutions compared to 47 in 1992. With a total of 225 higher education institutions in the region (130 in England; 20 in Scotland; 13 in Wales; 61 in the Republic of Ireland; 2 in Northern Ireland), this is a response rate of just under 19%. For the full list of participating institutions see appendix A.

Note

[1] Roel Vismans ' Low Countries Studies in the Nineties.' Dutch Crossing 46 (1992): 102-107; also in Bulletin of the Conference of University Teachers of German in Great Britain and Ireland . September 1992: 11-14; a Dutch version was published as: 'Lagelandenkunde in Groot-Brittannië en Ierland in de jaren negentig.' Publicatieblad van de Nederlandse Taalunie 26 (1992): 10-12.

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