The Executive Board says it has “embraced Schouten’s report and will use it as a starting point to move the department forward.” Schouten served as dean of the department from 2011 to 2016. Jos Keurentjes was recently appointed interim dean and Sham Moodliar is the new managing director. The new Department Board intends to accelerate the changes that have already been set in motion.

Schouten carried out his investigation in 2023 and delivered his report later that same year. He states that he was “approached by former rector Frank Baaijens in March 2023, who expressed concerns that things were not going well at the CE&C department.” In his report, he writes about issues such as the board being indecisive, an unclear division of roles, the department being an island within TU/e, insufficient career prospects for assistant professors, and socially unsafe situations. “This report is a harsh judgment on the board and the department as a whole,” reflects former vice dean Remco Tuinier. “That said, I do recognize many of the issues that are pointed out. In any case, it immediately became clear to me that improvement was in order.”

Ivo Filot of CE&C’s Department Council says the council recognizes certain elements of the report, but not all of it. “The findings are objective and recognizable, but the council has noticed division among its members about the correct course of action for improvement.” He finds it difficult to share with the media the precise details of the council’s doubts at this stage as he does not want to thwart the internal process. 

“What the Department Council wholeheartedly agrees with is the observation that Recognition & Rewards has been long overdue and continues to be neglected. We have a huge group of assistant professors here who, in other departments, would ordinarily have long since advanced to the position of associate professor.”

Follow-up

Schouten lists a whole series of measures in the report. Despite the strong criticism regarding social safety, these are mostly focused on improving the governance culture and providing career prospects. He thinks setting up four teams – focused on career development, cluster creation, materials mapping, and process technology – will help achieve that. In his initial planning, these teams were supposed to be in place by the beginning of this year. However, the current board has taken a slightly different approach.

“We selected Jaap Schouten as the investigator because he is very familiar with the department, with the university and the broader academic environment in the Netherlands, and because he has wide support within the department,” the Executive Board states. “Additionally, we know him as a capable and empathetic administrator with strong analytical skills. Furthermore, he has not worked for TU/e since 2019, which allowed him to operate independently.”

Jos Keurentjes, the recently appointed dean of the CE&C department: “Let me be clear: our perspective is more focused on the future than on the past, but this does not negate the findings in the report. We are taking it very seriously, as is the Executive Board. There is work to be done.”

Clusters

Keurentjes informs that a slightly different course has been chosen than the one Schouten described. “There will be four clusters to ensure that the department is more closely aligned with the social challenges of today and tomorrow. The new cluster names aren’t set in stone yet, but the themes are: sustainability/circularity, energy, health and high-tech. We’re also still working out the details of the personnel shifts. Some people have already expressed their preferences, others haven’t (yet) and that’s fine. People know where to find us if they want to share their input.”

Sham Moodliar, the recently appointed managing director at the CE&C department: “What we’re trying to say with these new clusters is ‘stay focused on science, but don’t lose sight of society’. What does our society need? How can you contribute with your scientific knowledge?” Keurentjes nods. “In the past, you could determine your own course and see where your work would lead you. Now, you must let societal themes determine the course of your work.

Sign of the times

Professor of organic chemistry Bert Meijer has been with the department for a long time and recalls a major reorganization of the department that may have caused some anxiety at the time. “That was around 2011/2012. Several good staff members were laid off. It’s not strange that people would want to avoid something like that happening again. That led to groups working more on an individual basis and less as unified department. There have been several other boards after that, all with the best of intentions, but unfortunately, the necessary sense of unity has not returned.”

Meijer sees a lot of room for improvement, but also points out that a lot is going well. “The department is very successful. Many PhD candidates are being trained in important fields, ERC, NWO and industrial grants are being secured, and the department has a lot of KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) members.”

Meijer also believes that having two different streams within the department – Chemistry and Chemical Engineering – has led to a deadlock. “Whereas Chemistry is somewhat geared toward an academic career, Chemical Engineering is more focused on a career in industry. As such, the staffing proportions between the two are different, which understandably causes friction.”

However, he does not think this is the only reason. “There’s unrest everywhere in society at the moment. From Russia-Ukraine, the U.S. and the Middle East, to here in the Netherlands and at the university.” He refers to the book The Fourth Turning by historians Strauss and Howe, which according to him offers an analysis of the current situation.

“They argue that there are cycles of eighty to one hundred years in the world with four moments of change. A crisis, followed by three phases of reconstruction and increasing individualism, which leads us back to crisis because a highly divided society cannot handle a real crisis. They predict that the current crisis period will resolve around 2030. So something really bad needs to happen for people to put aside their individualism in order to work together for a solution. At the same time, you hope that the crisis will not be too serious for us and that we will come to this realization sooner.”

The new Department Board does not plan to wait until 2030. They are already diligently working on the new structure. Jos Keurentjes, the new dean at the department reads that “the department has retreated into its own bubble”. “That seems to have happened without people really noticing, but we do need to break out of that now. The new cluster structure aims to reduce fragmentation and strengthen our connection to the outside world.” The board’s goal is for the department to become more integrated into the TU/e community as well as more attuned to what society needs. “Chemistry may no longer have the positive image it once had, but it is still at the heart of societal transitions. Although we were already working on that, we were not showing it enough. That’s what we want to improve now.”

Both Keurentjes and Moodliar have spoken with many people from all layers within the department recently. “We noticed that career prospects are unclear. We’re going to address that by means of a more concrete PI model.”

Social safety

When asked if the board also has plans to improve social safety, managing director Sham Moodliar responds: “We believe the findings regarding social unsafety are a result of the situation at the time. And the lack of career prospects has caused uncertainty, which in turn can lead to (social safety) issues. If we improve the governance culture and the career model, those feelings may improve as well,” he expects. 

No more vice dean

Former dean Kitty Nijmeijer recognizes the key points of the report. “I was eager to address these issues as dean. It was Jaap’s report, in fact, that convinced me to agree to the extension of my appointment as dean ad interim last summer. I was able to take a number of steps over the past year, such as working toward and starting the process of cluster formation and formulating the PI policy/career development. However, by the summer, I realized that a dean with a different skill set and expertise is needed for the phase ahead. That was the reason why I expressed to the Executive Board that I wanted to pass the torch, in the best interest of the department.”

In his report, Schouten advises that no more vice deans be appointed for the department. Former vice dean Remco Tuinier – who still works as a professor at the department – understands the logic behind that advice. “The position of vice dean exists in part to strengthen ties to the department. But if you choose two administrators and four cluster leaders instead, that’s another way to maintain those ties.”

The advice to no longer have a vice dean is a viable option for Keurentjes and Moodliar. The department’s website does not currently list a vice dean. “Formally, Emiel Hensen is now vice dean. It doesn’t matter to me whether the board will operate with or without a vice dean after this phase,” says Keurentjes. “For now, it's important that he’s still here, to provide some historical perspective at the table. But it’s possible that ultimately, the board will consist of a managing director and a dean, with the four cluster representatives acting as a sort of extension of the board.”

Workload and financial pressure

Tuinier eventually voluntarily stepped down as vice dean under the previous board. “After reading this report, I felt insufficient support to continue. Plus, my term was coming to an end.” He has given much thought to the causes of the problems. “The department has an extremely high workload. That naturally makes you lose sight of the big picture.”

“The report calls for a culture change, which I agree with,” Tuinier continues. “But what I felt was lacking was an idea of how that should be done, as well as how the workload could be reduced and how the financial embedding within the university could be improved. Because in my opinion, that can also indirectly contribute to workload and therefore individualism.”

Tuinier shows figures (2023) from the BI portal. “Look, well under half of the first flow of funds goes to the departments. Our department shows very high-quality results, both in research and education, but as a result, there is high workload and our labs are expensive. The projections show that we’re heading towards a deficit. Departments with advanced facilities (labs, equipment) such as APSE, BME and CE&C inevitably have high base costs. The distribution of funds across departments is currently based on ECTS and PhD bonuses. It would be beneficial to consider the cost differences between departments when allocating financial resources.”