In 1986, Groningen was the first city in the Netherlands where 16 of the 24 vocational schools merged into a larger institute, as recommended in the government paper “Expansion, Division of Tasks, and Concentration in the Higher Educational System”. Hence, Hanze became quickly one of the biggests Universities of Applied Sciences in the nation and data suggests it is growing every year. In 1989 the university joined the Erasmus Programme and in 2014 Hanze became holder of the Erasmus Charter of Higher Education 2014–2020.