Delft Matters (DM), the TU Delft magazine for alumni, staff members and students, will no longer be published on paper from July 2025. Instead, it will be published online. DM’s predecessor, Delft Integraal, was first published in 1984 with a print run of 6,000. The print run is now about nine times more.
(Photo: Marjolein van der Veldt)
The announcement that the paper version of Delft Matters will stop and will only be available digitally is stated on the back of the latest issue (in Dutch). The first subscribers received it on 3 December. They were requested to share their email address so that they can continue receiving DM.
The 60-page paper version of the magazine is printed twice a year with a print run of about 50,000 Dutch language and more than 6,000 English language copies. Carola de Vree, the Communications Director, explains that TU Delft has been working on minimising printing for sustainability reasons for a while now. Subscribers to DM abroad have received digital versions of DM since 2023 unless they pay EUR 15 per year to receive the paper magazine. But the costs of paper, delivery and printing go up every year. “This is why we have decided not to print paper versions of Delft Matters anymore,” says De Vree.
The last paper issue will be published in July 2025. This will then be the seventh edition.
‘A major loss’
Delft Matters was first published in the summer of 2022 as the successor to Delft Integraal. The Alumni Relations Department, that commissioned DM, and the Editorial Office of Delta that produces the magazine, had worked on restyling the magazine before that. The magazine’s slant, appearance and target group changed so much that they did not think that the name Delft Integraal fit anymore.
Articles about academic findings partly gave way to stories about societal challenges such as climate change and how TU Delft hopes to help solve them. The alumni strategy, TU Delft for Life, is also reflected in Delft Matters in various ways. Based on the idea that they can achieve more as a community than as individuals, the strategy aims to strengthen the relationships between alumni, staff members and students. This is why physical versions – in small numbers – and digital versions – for students – of DM are also disseminated on campus.
‘The advantage is that we can also use other forms of communication’
Jasper Peterich, Director of Alumni Relations, says that stopping the paper versions of DM will be ‘a major loss’. Saskia Bonger, the Editor in Chief, agrees. Neither of them yet know what the digital version will look like. The two teams are discussing this.
Peterich’s choice would be to keep “the articles that show what is happening at TU Delft academically … We will also keep alumni abreast of the activities in the TU Delft for Life community”. He hopes that the digital versions of DM will make alumni “even more involved in TU Delft” and thus that “good comes from this”.
Collecting email addresses
Is it not harder to reach alumni online? And especially if they are senior citizens? From experience at Delta, Editor in Chief Bonger knows how hard it is to attract readers through digital means alone. “It is a lot of work, but we will do our best to find a solution for Delft Matters.”
De Vree emphasises the advantages of going digital. “We can share more customised information with alumni.” She also sees that “online is becoming more the norm, even among older people … The advantage of digital communication with alumni is that we can also use other forms of communication, such as videos and perhaps podcasts.”
According to Peterich, the big challenge now is to collect email addresses. Alumni Relations assume that there are currently about 110,000 alumni alive. The database contains 100,000 names. There are postal addresses for 70,000 people and email addresses for 50,000.
How it all started
The first issue of Delft Matters’ predecessor, Delft Integraal, was published in 1984. The magazine, with its black and white photos, had just one spot colour: TU Delft blue. The editorial information states a print run of 6,000. There was also an English language version right from the start called Delft Outlook. Its print run is not stated in the editorial information.
The first issue contained articles about robotics, echo acoustics, and offshore and material research
The goal of the Rector Magnificus at the time, Prof. B.P.Th. Veldman, was to ‘regularly inform readers about our graduates, our research outcomes and about what TU Delft can do and what they can do’ he wrote in the foreword.
Editorial office
The Editor in Chief, Jeannine Liebrand, added that she wanted to give readers a glimpse into the research and education of all departments and make the connection between the different disciplines clear. The first issue contained articles about robotics, echo acoustics, and offshore and material research.
In the 38 years that followed, Delft Integraal was adapted and restyled several times (the magazine became full colour in 1994). For a long time the magazine was produced by a team of internal and external staff members under the leadership of the Editor in Chief. Since 2007, the 24th year, the magazine fell under the responsibility of Delta’s Editorial Office. While they have adopted a journalistic approach in producing the magazine, it does not fall under the journalistic independence of Delta.
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