Interests

The ink on my column about the suspension of the Delft Technology Fellowship had barely dried when the next piece of news emerged. Tijo Collot d’Escury, Chair of the Supervisory Board, surprised friends and foes alike with a sudden statement announcing that he was stepping down from his role with immediate effect. Not because he wished to be held accountable for the role of the Supervisory Board in the social safety scandal. He says that he is resigning to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. With the convergence strategy and the expansion of the Rotterdam campus becoming more concrete, it is no longer possible to combine the role of Chair of the Supervisory Board with his position as Managing Partner at the Roland Berger consultancy firm, we read in Delta. Given the developments around the Rotterdam campus, a tender is expected to be issued in the near future. “As far as I know, TU Delft is also planning to invite Roland Berger to participate in this tender,” the Chair stated.

The cooperation between TU Delft and Roland Berger (RB) has a long history. A senior partner at this firm, who is a TU Delft alumnus and until recently also a board member of the University Fund, was one of the founders of what is now Yes!Delft. In his current role at RB, he was one of the authors of the ‘Valorisatie Ontketend’ (valoristation unleashed, in Dutch) report from 2021 – the year in which the Chair of the Supervisory Board was appointed. The report advocates for innovation in physical ‘ecosystems’ of businesses and cites ‘the combination of TU Delft Campus and Erasmus Smart Health Tech Campus’ as ‘a fine example’. Two years earlier, in a memorandum entitled Beyond Valorisation, RB had already advised TU Delft to further develop as a public-private innovation campus and offered to jointly identify key areas for further exploration and to work on this vision. RB also advises TU Delft on numerous other matters.

Was his appointment at the time truly appropriate?

The Delft Supervisory Board Regulations (in Dutch) are clear. They state that a member of the Board must avoid entering into or maintaining primary or secondary roles if such a role ‘creates or fosters the (appearance of) a conflict of interest’. Isn’t the Chair’s defensive statement the clearest evidence that this appearance has indeed been fostered? Was his appointment at the time truly appropriate?

It is evident that the Executive Board and the Chair are paving the way for future collaboration in developing the Rotterdam campus. The Chair takes home a wealth of relevant knowledge that gives RB a competitive edge in the upcoming tender. Should he not have declared that RB would not be registering for the tender? While the statement refers to an ‘ethical wall’ in RB, how credible is that to the outside world when you are the Managing Partner of RB’s Dutch branch? And the Executive Board seems to already be passing the ball to the consultancy firm of the Chair of its own Supervisory Board – while he is still in office.

I reread the Delta interview with the Chair of the Supervisory Board from 28 June 2024, just three days before the date of the letter (in Dutch) in which the Education Inspectorate delivered a negative judgement on the Executive Board on three of the four assessment points, and a negative judgement on the Supervisory Board on all four. One sentence in the interview sticks with me: ‘We have full confidence in the Executive Board’.