They are accredited to confer bachelor's, master's and (with the exception of the Netherlands Defence Academy) doctoral degrees.
The term universiteit is reserved to doctorate granting institutes in the Dutch context, and the additional qualifier "research" is hardly ever used in practice.
and dr.[7] English variants (MSc BSc MA BA LLB LLM BEng PhD) are not (yet)[8] protected by Dutch law[9] (but using the title "dr." based on a PhD degree, without permission from DUO, is a violation of Dutch law as the title "doctor" is protected).
One may bear in the Netherlands foreign titles according to the laws of the country wherein they were granted, but without translating them in Dutch.
Universities of applied sciences (Dutch: hogeschool) in the Netherlands are focused on professional education rather than scientific research.
While the literal translation of hogeschool is "high school", these are second-tier institutes of higher education, and can be compared with colleges or polytechnics or similar in other countries.
In international contexts, the phrase University of Applied Sciences is used for the majority of these schools, as suggested by the Dutch Minister of Education.