Short news
Datasets disappearing, funding cuts, American colleagues too afraid to answer the phone – many stories are circulating about the consequences of the new US science policies. How are researchers in the Netherlands experiencing the impact of the Trump administration?
Investigative journalists from different Dutch media outlets are working together to uncover the concrete effects of US policy on researchers in the Netherlands. These are investigative platform Investico, De Groene, NU.nl, the Higher Education Press Agency (HOP), to which Delta is also affiliated.
HOP, Bas Belleman
Want to help?
- Do you work in academia and want to contribute? You can help by filling out a short survey (5 minutes).
- The survey is in English, but open-ended questions can also be answered in Dutch. Your details will only be used for verification and will never be published without your permission.
This survey will provide a more complete picture
Recently, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) asked its members similar questions and has fully endorsed this investigation.
President Donald Trump has signed an order aiming to eliminate the Department of Education. According to the US President the department is wasting billions of dollars. He wants education to become a matter of individual US states again, as it used to be.
This affects, among other things, US student funding. Trump believes that the ministry should not handle ‘banking matters’ such as debt and wants to transfer this to ‘an entity that can serve American students’.
The total student debt currently stands at $1.6 trillion. Student debt is a problem in the US anyway. Democrats wanted to cancel debts, but Republicans did not.
Permission
Trump has yet to get formal permission from the US Congress to actually abolish the ministry, but until then he can already downsize the department substantially.
The ministry has existed since 1979, when Democratic President Jimmy Carter was in power. Carter turned 100 and was just able to vote in the last election. He was an outspoken opponent of Trump, who is now giving him a kicking: he suggests that Carter created the department only to gain support from the largest US education union.
Equal opportunities
The department not only regulates student funding but also deals with equal opportunities and non-discrimination. So the blow is harder for groups of pupils and students who already have a harder time in education, for example those from poorer families. (HOP, BB)
On Tuesday evening, a big fire broke out at a house on Nieuwstraat in the centre of Delft. Around midnight, the fire was largely under control, but the fire brigade expects to be busy for hours with debris clearance.
The fire started around 20:30 in an upstairs unit on the Nieuwstraat and quickly spread to several upstairs units, as well as two premises on the Wijnhaven, reports the Haaglanden Safety Region (in Dutch).
Due to the smoke, local residents were advised to keep windows and doors closed. The Nieuwstraat was also closed due to possible collapse danger. The fire brigade is taking into account that one of the buildings could still collapse.
For the time being uninhabitable
One person was injured in the fire, this person was taken to hospital with unknown injuries. In addition, the fire brigade managed to rescue two cats from the premises during the extinguishing work.
The affected houses in the Nieuwstraat and Hippolytusbuurt are badly damaged and uninhabitable for the time being. Adjacent shop premises and houses also suffered damage. About ten residents had to leave their homes. They were initially accommodated in Delft city hall and spent the night in a hotel.
The Delft Hyperloop team was named the winner of the KIVI Engineering Student Team 2025 award last week and also took home the Audience Award. The award ceremony of the Royal Society of Engineers (Kivi) took place on Wednesday 12 March at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, in the presence of Princess Beatrix, Princess Mabel, and Kivi President Jacolien Eijer-de Jong.
“We hope that the Kivi Engineering Student Team Award will give Delft Hyperloop a boost to continue their leadership in international hyperloop development,” said the jury. “Their passion for technology and sustainability is evident in their work, and they serve as an inspiring example for other students.”
The Kivi Engineering Student Team Award was established in 2022 to recognise student teams that excel in teamwork, innovation, societal impact, and technical expertise. The goal is to encourage future engineers and draw attention to their innovative projects. The other finalists were University Racing Eindhoven (TU Eindhoven) and Solar Boat Twente (University of Twente).
Founded in 2016, Delft Hyperloop has established itself as a pioneer in hyperloop development – an innovative transport system that could transform the future of mobility. This year, the team’s goal with Hyperloop 9 is to become the first student team ever to demonstrate a scaled-up hyperloop system at European Hyperloop Week (EHW), the world’s largest hyperloop competition.
Four lecturers have been nominated for Lecturer of the Year 2025: two from a university and two from a university of applied sciences. The winner will receive a grant of 25 thousand euros for educational innovation. It is the eleventh time that the prize will been awarded.
One of the contenders is from TU Delft: dr. Miriam Blaauboer (Applied Sciences). She was elected TU Delft’s lecturer of the year in November 2024, which automatically gave her a chance to win the national nomination.
Blaauboer has been involved in teaching for 15 years, contributing to both the bachelor’s and master’s programmes in Applied Physics. Her standout courses include the Honours Class on Electromagnetism for bachelor’s students and Fundamentals of Quantum Information in the new MSc programme on Quantum Information Science & Technology (QIST).
Her nomination highlights her teaching style as follows: ‘Miriam stands out as an educator thanks to her crystal-clear explanations, sparkling enthusiasm, empathy towards students, and disarming friendliness. She delivers her lectures with such energy that it inspires students to dive deeper into the topics.’
Connection
The other nominated lecturers are Menno Otten (Amsterdam University of the Arts), Farid Boussaid (University of Amsterdam) and Anna Posthumus Meyjes-de Breij (Leiden University of Applied Sciences). The election is organised by the Dutch National Students’ Association (ISO) and the Comenius network of innovative lecturers. The jury includes students, lecturers and last year’s winner: Peter Pelzer from Utrecht University . The award ceremony will be held in Nieuwegein on 7 April.
The Comenius network was founded in 2018 and now has more than six hundred members from vocational secondary, higher and university education. They can become a member through prizes and education grants, but for a few years now it has also been possible if you write a good motivation letter.
This time, in the judging, extra attention will be paid to ‘socially oriented thinking’. “At a time when opinions differ, it is precisely teachers who can provide connection in the classroom,” says ISO president Mylou Miché.
HOP/Bas Belleman, Delta
A lot of odour and flooding on Tuesday 11 March at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences. A sewer pipe burst there around 1:05 PM. Videos circulating on social media show the light brown water coming through the ceiling in a hard jet.
The sewer pipe was located under groups of toilets on the second floor and higher up. According to a spokesperson, a piece of the bend of the pipe has come loose. As a result, the filthy water spurted down in the hallway and the stairwell on the first floor.
Video by Mike Wu, who was having lunch when suddenly ‘it started pouring in front of us and we got away quickly’.
Open days
The jet stopped after the sewer pipes had emptied. The toilets were immediately closed and were still out of use on Wednesday morning. People were also immediately on the spot to cordon off the hallway and stairwell. Then a thorough cleaning had to take place. The tube will also be made as quickly as possible. This is extra important, because there will be open days on the first floor this Friday.
How the pipe could come loose remains to be seen. The CEG building dates from the sixties and, like many old buildings on campus, suffers from overdue maintenance. According to the spokesperson, large-scale maintenance is now taking place.
Nearly three thousand lecturers, staff and students demonstrated in Leiden on 10 March against the cutbacks in higher education. On 11 March, it is Utrecht’s turn to continue this so-called relay strike.
The activists are hoping that the education budget that the House of Representatives agreed to after long negotiations will be rejected by the Senate. Rob Jetten (D66) and Frans Timmermans (GroenLinks-PvdA), who were present in Leiden, also called on the senators to do so.
Withholding wages
In Utrecht, strikers do not feel supported by the HU University of Applied Sciences, as it turns out. Although the board says it shares the concerns about the cutbacks, HU employees who stop working have to take a day off or appeal to their union’s strike fund.
As far as is known, the HU is the only institution that wants to withhold salary from strikers. In the meantime, the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences has announced that no wages will be withheld from employees who strike for less than two hours.
HOP, Hein Cuppen
A survey by the Noscura communications agency shows that 14 out of 15 Dutch universities have stopped posting on X, formerly Twitter. Maastricht University has even deleted its account entirely. The only Dutch university still active on Twitter is TU Delft.
Ironically, the man now calling (in Dutch) on TU Delft to be the last university to distance itself from X is the same one who set up the university’s Twitter account back in 2009. But a lot has changed since then, notes Rob Speekenbrink.
Cesspit
‘Twitter became mainstream, massive, changed its name and owner, and then turned into a cesspit. The sentiment has shifted so much that we have to ask ourselves whether universities, universities of applied sciences, and vocational schools should still be on X,’ writes Speekenbrink.
There are plenty of alternatives: Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, and Instagram. So far, TU Delft has not responded to the call: the university is posting almost on a daily basis on Elon Musk’s platform..
Update:
On LinkedIn, Carola de Vree, director of communications, wrote about this:
‘We are currently weighing that up with a so-called ‘moral deliberation’. We are then looking at all platforms and their conditions, so not just X. And we are also exploring interesting alternatives. By the way, we will keep the account on X and never delete it completely, to prevent others from taking over the TU Delft account.’
The TU Delft Krashna Musika student orchestra and choir will be performing two fairy tale concerts in June – and that calls for a narrator. Do you know someone who would be perfect for the role? Or could it be you? Let them know!
Conductor Stijn Berkouwer is celebrating his first lustrum with Krashna this year and had the honour of selecting a piece for the summer concerts. His choice is Der Rosenkavalier, a love story set in a romanticised 18th century Vienna. This ‘wonderfully sentimental’ piece holds a special place in his heart. “During my studies at the Conservatorium of Amsterdam, I had the opportunity to intern with De Nederlandse Opera for a production of Der Rosenkavalier. As a young student, I spent two months observing the conductor Simon Rattle and soloists like Kurt Riedel and Anne Schwanewilms. That experience made a deep impression on me, and I’m eager to share this music with the Krashna students and audiences in Delft.”
To create a full evening’s programme, Krashna’s board added two more fairy tales: Cinderella and Black Knight. That’s when they realised they needed a narrator – ideally someone from the TU Delft community.
So, what are they looking for? Choir commissioner Myrthe den Boestert has some ideas: Dutch-speaking, a strong engaging voice, a talent for storytelling that’s suitable for families (it’s a family-friendly show, after all), an affinity with music, and availability on 28 and 29 June.
Krashna would love to receive names and contact details via email. You can nominate yourself (preferably with an audio recording) or a lecturer you think would be a great fit. The organisers hope to select the best narrator through a small competition – with the winner getting the honour of presenting the concerts.
Before the break, the orchestra will perform Der Rosenkavalier and Cinderella. After the break, the choir takes centre stage with the dark Black Knight fairy tale (spoiler: everyone dies), followed by two heartwarming songs: The Road Home and I Love My Love.
- More information on Krashna’s website
Starting 1 May, Cokky Hilhorst will be the new Dean of the Faculty of Technology, Policy, and Management. This was announced by the Executive Board in an email to all TU Delft staff on Tuesday. She will succeed Deputy Dean Sabine Roeser, who had been appointed as of 1 December 2024. Prior to Roeser, Aukje Hassoldt has led the faculty for four years.
Hassoldt left TU Delft to become Dean at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Before Hassoldt’s appointment, the Faculty was led by four interim deans.
Managing budget cuts
Hilhorst has been a professor of Information Systems at the private Nyenrode Business University since 2018. There, she is also director of the Faculty Expert Center for Accounting, Auditing & Control. She studied artificial intelligence at Utrecht University, has worked at the consultancy firm PWC for a long time, and is a member of the supervisory boards of ProRail and Grant Thornton.
In the email, the Executive Board states that Hilhorst ‘align[s] perfect with the faculty’s profile’. It is confident that she will successfully manage the upcoming budget cuts at her faculty.
