Expat Center

Het WTC Twente is bezig met het opzetten van een Expat Center. Ter voorbereiding daarop is vorig jaar een vragenlijst ontwikkeld. Deze WTC Twente enquête is opgesteld in samenwerking met de Universiteit Twente, Oost NV, Saxion en Career Center Twente. Het doel was om inzicht te krijgen in buitenlandse kenniswerkers in de regio Twente. Op basis van de uitkomsten (zie hieronder) is het WTC Twente nu bezig een ondernemersplan op te zetten, zodat daadwerkelijk gestart kan worden met een Expat Center in het World Trade Center Twente. De Expat Center moet een loket worden waar de hoger opgeleide buitenlandse kenniswerker, expat, terecht kan met vragen op gebied van regelgeving, wonen, scholing en specifieke bijeenkomst voor expats.

Download het leaflet Expat Center

WTC Twente researched setting up an Expat Center in Twente

Two reports have been conducted for the project of setting up an Expat Center in Twente. They are the Business Plan and a Market Research Report. The Business Plan consists of external and internal analysis, project details and definition, mission and objective of the project, organizational chart, planning, budget and evaluation. The Market Research Report consists of the aim and research questions, methodology (questionnaire and interview), study of current situation in Twente, results of the interviews and questionnaire, overall perception of the target groups, analyzing the bottlenecks and recommendations. 

The current study aims to focus on foreign, highly educated employees working in the Twente region. Sometimes confusion arises since the term includes employees that work for the same company as they have worked for in their mother country, as well as including other “knowledge” workers. Therefore, when using the term ‘expat’, it means ‘international knowledge worker’. Moreover, the total group defined as a customer to the Expat Centre also includes the partners and children of the knowledge migrants. The most important reasons for residencency of expats are: Knowledge Migrant, Working as an employee, scientific researcher, Admission Scheme for highly educated people, and Student.

The research population for the questionnaire consisted of people (HR) working for organizations that employ international knowledge workers and international schools/universities that have international workers and the knowledge workers themselves. The purpose of this questionnaire is to find out how many expats are working in the Twente region at the moment and also about their level of experience in arranging for the needs of international workers. Two different surveys were conducted. One was sent to the people (HR) working for organizations that employ international knowledge workers and the other one was designed for the international knowledge workers (Expats). This survey was aimed at identifying bottlenecks in the settling of expats in the Twente region. In addition, demographic variables were obtained in order to get an idea about the composition of the group of expats in the Twente region. This process comprised of a wide range of aspects, from information supply to assistance in housing and access to social networks.

After combining the questionnaire result from both the HR managers and expats, a vast majority hold a PhD and/or a Masters degree. Twente has both single and family expats with an average of two children per expat. The majority of expats that are working in the Twente region are living in Twente. Most expats immigrated to the Netherlands for a career opportunity. They use their network to find a job in Twente, such as academic or professional contacts and internet. More than half of the expats indicated that they were supported during the process of settlement. However, almost all of the HR managers are helping the expats with issues that are very basic, such as working permits, GBA and BSN. The responsibility of settling down in the Twente region still resides with the expats themselves.

To summarize, the needs of expats are threefold:

- Primary need involves governmental procedures which are crucial for starting in the Twente region/Netherlands, such as residence and working permits, GBA registration and BSN number;

- Secondary need involves general information on living in the Twente region/Netherlands. Housing is one example, but taxes, insurances, medical care and child care are part of the secondary needs as well;

- Tertiary need is on social life and leisure facilities; networking, social contacts, Dutch language, arts, religion and sports are part of the tertiary needs.

Conclusion

Based on the research study, most of the HR managers and expats would like to have a one stop centre that can help them with all the necessary processes, documents and information. According to the interviews with other Expat Desks in the Netherlands, some of the Expat Desks have a similar situation with Twente and used it as their motivation to open an Expat Center. Many companies in the Twente region will benefit from the Expat Desk Twente and will use the service. As a conclusion, by having an Expat Center in Twente, the World Trade Center Twente is supporting companies in the region to be more internationally orientated and it will be an added value for the region in further supporting the economy. Finally it will be a big step in achieving the mission statement of the International Agenda for Twente. At the 10th of November 2011 a seminar will be organised about this theme.