The proverbial ‘stick to beat’ is a fitting image – mainly used by people higher up in management – an unjust argument to cause or prohibit an action. Such arguments are often used to cover up their own mismanagement, to please higher management, or to disguise underlying reasons.
Financial difficulties for all universities
This week, the Faculty of Science & Technology, in which my group is embedded, is executing the earlier announced reorganisation. As far as I know, our faculty is still the only part of the UT that is officially subjected to these measures, and also the only one nationally. Obviously, the financial situation is extremely difficult at the UT as a whole, and at practically all universities in the Netherlands. So we may only be the frontrunner in a wave of reorganisations, but only time will tell. I find it more important to analyse S&T’s present situation and learn from it, for now and for the future.
Understanding what is happening
The UT has a major deficit. So much became clear more than a year ago. About half of the UT deficit has been identified as an S&T deficit, and S&T has been ordered by the university board to save about 7 million euros on its budget. We could talk at great lengths about how well S&T’s education is performing (applied physics and chemical engineering being a ‘top-rated education’ year after year). We could also point out the excellence of S&T’s scientific research (with the vast majority of ERC and Vidi/Vici grants landing at S&T). But playing this ‘emotional card’ will only hinder our understanding of what is actually happening. My main question is: What defines the faculty’s deficit, and what are its underlying causes?
Three causes
Alas, my position does not provide me with full insight in the exact numbers, but I have witnessed from close-by some aspects of the organisation over the past years. In my estimation, three causes for the deficit can be defined, all roughly equal in weight.
Failing governmental support
The first one is the one we all know, the one that affects all universities nationally: the government has not increased its support for education and research, while salaries and energy costs have risen dramatically. It does not require an economics degree to understand its long-term impact. In particular in S&T, where manpower and infrastructure are relatively costly. One can call it government mismanagement or ‘change of view’, whatever you prefer.
University board governance
The second cause lies in our university board’s governance. Why are we still confronted with a historical and non-transparent financial system? Why are cheap and large-scale educational programmes favoured over S&T’s smaller-scale – but excellently performing and strongly demanded by society – educational programmes? Why do we have such largely grown, centralised service departments, that have learned to define their own right of existence separate from research and education? I commented on overhead before, but it is obvious that the overhead needs to be paid by the people who bring in the money, those who actually do the teaching and researching. A large central overhead leads to a burden – and deficits – at the faculties.
S&T faculty management
The third cause lies with the S&T faculty itself. Only a few years ago, we got extra (!) investments from the government in chemistry and physics to hire more scientific staff – the so-called ‘sector plans’. This somehow created a mindset that money was flowing richly and endlessly. My estimate is that S&T hired about twice the number of people they should have. Why do I know firsthand of two cases (and heard about a third one) in which the faculty board could not choose between two final candidates for a staff position, leading to a decision to hire both? Why was the hiring process not monitored, leading to the later realisation that fewer women were hired than was promised in the sector plans, resulting in additional hirings and promotions? Why have individual problems that existed for years in the faculty not been dealt with purposefully, adequately, and timely? Why have earlier decisions to discontinue groups after retirement been ignored? Why have signals about the unsustainability of ongoing processes – coming from other faculties and their financial departments as well as of our own financial department– not been heard and taken to heart?
Reorganisations hit real people
So, here we are, in the middle of the reorganisation of S&T. Since last December, tension and anxiety have built up. Plans were leaked, and colleagues of the ET faculty were able to mention who were ‘threatened by dismissal’ before any of us were informed. Since Monday, it has become a reality: about 50 people are being laid off. In my department (Molecules & Materials), finally taken shape after years of work, 35% of the staff will go, in the middle of the most intensive educational period. Personal dramas, all of them. They are excellent people, with dreams and ambitions, with families. Those that remain, will need to pick up the scraps and move on, and will even get more work on their plate; those who leave will have to try to regain their personal foundation. Me and (I presume) many others are left with many questions. How could a faculty board – which is part of the problem – be entrusted with the assignment to solve that same problem? On what vision has the reorganisation been based, since there was hardly any contents-related faculty vision before? How will we move on after this? How will we regain trust in the organisation as a whole?
In my spare time, I participate in a symphony orchestra. We currently play Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony, dedicated to the siege of Leningrad by the German army in WWII. There I am (in the first movement, right after the ‘war march’): the desolate observer (played by the bassoon), watching the devastations around me…
Jurriaan Huskens
Professor of Supramolecular Chemistry & Nanofabrication, faculty of Science & Technology
