Windows and doors at the Aula, Library and Pulse covered with protest posters

The posters, which had been stuck to windows and doors with visible blobs of glue, announced a protest on Friday 27 March. Cleaners removed the posters early on Tuesday morning. The incident follows two cases of vandalism on campus within a short space of time.

Protest

The protest is scheduled for Friday at 12:00 noon on the square in front of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. According to Delft Student Intifada, the protest is directed against TU Delft’s collaboration with Israeli universities and other organisations which, according to them, contribute directly or indirectly to violence against Palestinians. They state this in a post on Instagram.

In this context, they refer, among other things, to collaborations through Horizon, the European funding programme for research and innovation with a budget of over 95 billion euros.

Delta reported in early December that TU Delft is withdrawing from one of these Horizon projects: Next Generation of Edge AI Crossing Technology Fields (NEXT). This project focuses on secure European artificial intelligence that runs directly on local devices rather than in the cloud. The partner in Israel is the company Weebit Nano.

TU Delft is still listed as a participant on the official Horizon project page. When asked, a spokesperson replied by email that ‘the university does not comment on individual cases’.

No new partnerships

In June 2025, the Executive Board decided to cease entering into new partnerships with Israeli universities and other organisations, unless they meet certain criteria. In doing so, the Executive Board cited concerns about potential involvement in violence and human rights violations. At the same time, the Executive Board decided to reassess existing partnerships.

The TU Delft Integrity Office has identified 22 projects involving both TU Delft and an Israeli partner. Three of these have now been completed, a further nine are due to conclude in the coming months, and three have an unclear status as they have only just been added to the list. The remaining seven are being investigated as a priority.