Studenten Techniek In Politiek (STIP, "Technology Students In Politics") is a local political party in the municipality of

Delft Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...

in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

History

STIP was founded in 1993 and is run exclusively by students. The members of STIP rotate their seats after one year in municipal council (instead of the regular term of four years) to combine their elected position with their studies. STIP is a unique democratic example of student involvement in local politics. First elected in 1994, STIP had steadily grown its representation on the municipal council. After the election victory in 1998 STIP was invited to join the ruling coalition and get a seat on the executive council (''College van Burgemeester en Wethouders)''. Since then they have consistently remained part of the ruling coalition. Currently their representative on the executive council is deputy mayor Bas Vollebregt. STIP is the only student party in the Netherlands with a representation on the local executive council.

Ideology and electorate

STIP has no clearly defined political ideology and self-describes itself as pragmatic. However its ''raison d'être'' is improving the relationship between students and 'regular' citizens of Delft in general, and specifically improving the relationship between the

Delft University of Technology The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...

and the City of Delft. Their platform calls for investments in

sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

, local high tech start-ups and cultural activities. STIP is not affiliated with a national political party. In the last years STIP has been part of local majority coalitions together with the PvdA, VVD,

GroenLinks (, ; GL) is a Green politics, green List of political parties in the Netherlands, political party in the Netherlands. It was formed on 1 March 1989 from the merger of four Left-wing politics, left-wing parties: the Communist Party of the Neth ...

and D66. In many student cities there are conflicts between the 'regular' population of the city and the student population. Often this conflict remains unresolved partly because of under-representation of students within official representative organs such as the municipal council. The concept of a student party as a way to increase student representation in local government was named as one of the best case practices to increase student friendliness of European cities.The Student City By Leo van den Berg, Antonio Paolo Russo, European Institute for Comparative Urban Research Overwhelmingly the electorate of STIP consists of students, concentrated in the old city centre of

and the campus of the

Election results

External links

stipdelft.nl
Website of the political party STIP (in Dutch).

References

{{Political parties in the Netherlands Organisations based in Delft Local political parties in the Netherlands Political parties established in 1993 1993 establishments in the Netherlands Student political organisations in the Netherlands

History

Ideology and electorate

Election results

See also

External links

References