The renovation will redefine forty percent of the research program. The faculty will add a focus to medical technology to its research. `So, reduction and growth,' according to Dean Alfred Bliek, who does not rule out any compulsory redundancies. This will not just affect professors and other scientific staff, but also technical and administrative staff. Bliek and manager Pim Fij form the faculty's management team. `This is the time to be decisive, we have to go now. We cannot wait any longer. We chose not to change gradually, but to make some drastic changes.' They feel speed is of the essence: relocation to the new buildings (Zuidhorst and Meander) will start in July, a new master's program in biomedical engineering will start in September and the 3TU research plans call for strategic choices. It is a puzzle and the pieces are starting to fit together.
A combination of reduction is growth is the answer. With medical engineering as a new cornerstone. Bliek: `Biomedical Technology provides half our students, but staff size is not in relation to that. Now that the (three-year) master's program in biomedical engineering is being evaluated, we need to make sure there is matching research in the biomedical-technological field.' That research will be done in six new research groups : five in the area of medical technology, one in biomedical engineering. The five medicine chairs will be combined in an institute for medical technology that will at some point be merged with research institute BMTI, with a new name. Prior to that, Science & Technology will sign an agreement about joint research with the FC Donders Institute of the University of Nijmegen.
Science & Technology's new course is based on the market: its profile is being changed to fit the new subsidy agendas of NWO, the Ministery of Economic Affairs and the European Union. `This is the time to position ourselves optimally.' The choices were also based on the profiles of the five centers of excellence of the three technological universities. `Our faculty operates in four out of those five area. That is of strategic importance.' Research areas that do not fit that strategic plan, and are thus less likely to receive indirect government funding and external funding, will be discontinued. Eight research chairs fit those criteria.
ET research cutbacks
The faculty of Engineering Technology has a budget deficit of 1.8 million euros. That is less than the other technological faculties, but acting dean Joop Croonen still calls the coming cutbacks far reaching, especially for research.
The budget deficit of Engineering Technology will have to be reduced from 1.8 million to zero. The dean is convinced they will be able to reach that goal by 2008 or 2009. He thinks a reorganization will be troublesome, because the faculty led by former dean Henk Grootenboer has always watched spending closely. Croonen: `Grootenboer regularly cut costs to prevent reorganization, which has contributed significantly to our relative deficit. The cutbacks will be very subtle, also because in this faculty it is not possible to cut research groups or job groups without causing irreparable damage to the educational programs.'
EEMCS reorganization
Research at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics that is not imbedded with a research institute will be terminated. With this decision, the faculty board expects to be able to cut the required two million euros and have the budget balanced by 2008. Dean Tom Mouthaan fears compulsory dismissals are inevitable, but those will affect a `limited number' of people.
Trans. Jeroen Latour
