Samenvatting

In Dutch universities, honors programs are a fast growing development. The first such programs started in 1993. Twenty years later a large number of programs are implemented at nearly all research universities and also at many universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands. Recent data have revealed significant diversity in the types and structures of honors programs, many of which have functioned as laboratories of educational innovation within university- wide curricula and had positive spin-off effects on the regular curriculum and also on the transfer of talented students from secondary into higher education. Especially in the last decade, these spin-offs have had a strong influence on educational policy in the Netherlands at the primary and secondary as well as university levels.