Because no funding is expected for these groups, the faculty will terminate all activities on rubber technology (RBT), industrial polymerization processes (IPP), textile technology (TXT), development and design of industrial processes (OOIP), dynamics and control of processes (DCP), chemical analysis (CA) and separation technology (ST). Science & Technology currently houses sixteen chemical research chairs. That number will be reduced to nine, which also better corresponds to the low number of Chemical Technology students.
Apart from these chemical groups, the Complex Photonic Systems research chair will also disappear. Professors Ad Lagendijk and Willem Vos, who led this group, left for Amolf in Amsterdam not long ago. Bliek: `Vos now works here one day a week. In 2008 he will transfer completely and we will terminate the group. It is useless to build this kind of group in Twente, the competition from Amolf is simply too strong.'
Another reduction measure is the closing of the high pressure laboratory. Bliek: `The lab is unused half of the time. We are researching options to create a high pressure facility in Meander. That will not be an independent lab, but a small area for high pressure research.'
All staff members involved in the matter have been informed about the plans. Two weeks ago, the faculty invited everyone to the Vrijhof to explain the current state of affairs in the faculty to everyone. Bliek explained that the major budget deficits, mainly caused by ever increasing maintenance costs, leave the faculty no other choice. Lesser measures, as with the faculties of EEMCS and ET, are by no means sufficient. `Engineering Technology has frozen recruitment, for example. That would kill us, as it would block any effort to initiate new projects.'
Science & Technology has opted for a combination of reduction and growth. Eight chairs cut and seven new chairs created, especially in the area of medical technology, which is becoming a new accent. `With twenty-six chairs in total, the faculty will not become much smaller than now', Bliek said. `But it will give us an excellent positioning.'
Before that goal is reached however, 42 jobs - about thirty FTE - will have to be cut. A `substantial' part of that group qualifies for early retirement, but the dean refused to give any definite numbers. The rest will be transferred within the faculty, if possible. If that proves unfeasible, people will be asked or required to resign. Bliek: `This is very painful, I realize that. We are doing our best to think creatively with everyone to make everything a bit more digestible, because - and I want to be very clear on this - these people are not to blame for any of this.'
The meeting ended with a question round. A member of the audience expressed the fear that the outside world would get the idea that chemistry - and the chemistry program - would disappear from Twente. `Absolutely not,' Bliek emphasized. `We must not give anyone that idea. The Chemical Technology program will stay in Twente. Period.'
Another person asked about the future of the PhD students in the chairs involved. `Their future will not suffer from this,' Bliek assured. `We will not send people away without their thesis; that is fatal for the rest of their career.'
Barbara Mojet, Chairman of the Science & Technology Faculty Council, told us that an external mediator has been appointed that staff members can turn to if they so desire.
Trans. Jeroen Latour
