Hanze UAS was founded in 1986 as the merger of various local institutes for professional education, the oldest of which is the Academie Minerva, founded in 1798, which was the first multi-sectoral institute for practical higher education in the Netherlands. The mission of the Academy Minerva was “The improvement of Drawing, Construction and Nautical Sciences, together with the aligned Arts and Sciences, within all ranks of society, and in particular to improve the skills of the disadvantaged." Throughout the centuries that followed many more institutions, engaged in a wide range of different fields, were established.