These and other harsh statements can be read in the final report of the think tank that is comprised of five-UT professors (chairman Coonen, Blank, Hartel, van Swaaij and Wouters), who were appointed at the beginning of the year by the Executive Board. The think tank presented its findings last week. This happened during a senate meeting in the Horst building at which all UT professors were invited to attend.
The think tank's assignment was to draw up an investigation plan of the surroundings, which is based on interviews with experts (called stakeholders) from within and outside of the UT. The committee does not make choices explicitly itself. It is more of a reproduction showing the common perception of the UT.
The report is divided into seven problem areas, called themes, in which it is noted what choices the UT has to make with respect to its profile and which measures are needed to get the UT back on its feet to walk with the big players. Certain measures seem necessary if the UT does not want to fall to a mediocre level in the near future. It's not that everything is bad, quite the contrary. Yet the irreversible fact is that the outside world has a different, less positive image of this university compared to the view of people who work at the university. The main idea of the report: how will the UT remain a university where talented and driven people want to come to study and work?
The profile needs to be determined and clear for everybody and it must lead the UT towards further future activities. Firstly, questions need to be answered, such as: should the UT become an entrepreneurial research university or a regional educational institution? Or should it become a technological or multiple-core university-with one, two or three central themes?
The think tank also noted that the quality of the educational programs is dropping. The UT had to forfeit its top position, with a few exceptions. The number of students can only be maintained at a normal level by bringing in students from Germany. Which measures are needed?
For researchers, more credit can be received with research, but the question remains whether or not that is a realistic goal with six institutes - on a full scale. To make matters more complex, the combination of technological and social aspects is both a weak and a strong point, observes the think tank. The question remains, what does the UT stand for? Which and how many themes must it pursue to achieve a standard of excellence?
The UT needs to look for stronger partners (than it now has) to get ahead of the competition abroad. The desired profile of the UT could also show the direction. The 3-TU federations, in this context, are a good development with which the UT can score by establishing a European technological top institute (EIT). But the exact role of the federation in the power field needs to be specified.
