Philips and TU/e have a special connection. The university was established 66 years ago at the initiative of Philips, among others. Throughout all those years, there has been intensive cooperation on research projects in a wide variety of fields, such as medical technology and artificial intelligence. This collaboration ranks among the strongest research collaborations between a company and university worldwide. Many dozens of PhD candidates conducting research at TU/e do so together with Philips, and the collaboration annually yields about a hundred joint scientific papers and even startups. In addition, several Philips researchers work at TU/e as lecturers.

Concerns

Board President Robert-Jan Smits has serious concerns about the measures announced by Philips this week. According to him, not only do they affect the partnerships between Philips and TU/e, but also “the innovative capacity of the Netherlands”.

Smits says the Eindhoven University wants to help prevent talent that was let go by Philips from leaving for abroad. Although he believes that most of the Philips employees who are forced to leave will quickly secure new employment - given the Brainport region's economic boom - he fears that some may not be so fortunate. Smits: "We should consider the possibility of reinstating a sort of knowledge workers program in order to retain talent in a productive way, by temporarily seconding them to knowledge institutions like TU/e. They are more than welcome here.”