TU launches moral deliberation training courses for students and staff

The Integrity Office sent out invitations for the moral deliberation training sessions to various staff members and students this week. They are asked to forward the email to other interested parties within TU Delft.

Less moral stress

The course consists of two half-day training sessions, given by experts from Governance and Integrity International (G&I). During the first training day, participants are taught the theory and methodology behind moral deliberation. During the second session, they put this into practice. The aim is to develop a ‘common language and approach’ for making decisions on issues with moral, legal, and social implications.

According to the invitation email, the strength of this approach is ‘that it is not based on the individual judgement of an expert or a top-down proclamation, but on a collective, broadly supported consideration within a relevant group of professionals’. This should lead to greater support, less moral stress, and more responsible decision-making.

Knowledge security and partnerships

Moral deliberation is a tool that TU Delft has now used several times to form an opinion on complex issues. The first time was a trial at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science in 2022 and concerned knowledge security: how to prevent undesirable knowledge transfer, interference from state actors, and collaboration with unwanted individuals and institutions.

The next time was in 2023. That moral deliberation focused on cooperation with the fossil fuel industry. Among other things, it found that students and staff want more transparency about these ties and believe that TU Delft should set clear conditions for them.

The third moral deliberation chamber was held in 2025 and concerned collaboration with Israeli partners. That advice led to the Executive Board’s decision not to enter into any new collaborations with Israeli universities for the time being. Existing ties would be reassessed, a process that is still ongoing.

Mini moral deliberation on gatherings

TU Delft also uses the moral judgment method in other ways. For example, there is also the so-called ‘mini-moral deliberation’. In February 2025, the TU set up an advisory team to assess requests for lectures and other events on the basis of a ‘moral assessment framework’ or ‘mini-moral deliberation’.

This team was to include experts in the fields of safety, integrity, communication, and legal affairs. The team was tasked with removing existing confusion about which meetings could and could not take place.

Permanent deliberation chamber

According to the Integrity Office, it is now time for more people to learn the method, hence the training courses. In this first round, there is a choice of five different combinations of dates and time slots. They all start at the end of March and continue in mid-April. The number of places is limited, but people can also express their interest in future courses. No dates have been announced for these yet.

After the course, the Integrity Office may also invite participants to become members of the previously announced permanent moral deliberation chamber. This is expected to start in the near future. Members of the permanent chamber may then be asked to participate in sessions on specific topics.