What is the status of the Strategic Committee on Institutional Collaboration, Ethics and Moral Dilemmas – or SCEMD in short?
Haverkort: ‘The committee started in February, so we are still in the midst of setting things up. Part of that is adding an external member to the committee – who has expertise we don’t have yet. Our goal is to first set up a framework for the ethics and the moral dilemmas we face as a university when it comes to institutional collaborations.’
Medendorp: ‘If you look back: the executive board decided to set up these two committees last year. This first phase is a matter of finding out a way of working.’
Haverkort: ‘Because at first, all these difficult questions ended up either on Erwin’s desk, or the executive board’s. That’s why we needed a structure. Other universities are in a similar phase, by the way.’
What are the rules, roles and responsibilities of this specific committee?
Haverkort: ‘We don’t make decisions or give advice. That is up to the ethics committees that advice about the ethical aspects of research projects and the – also new – Advisory Committee Moral Dilemmas – or ACMD. We will provide a UT wide framework. This should be more detailed than just a guideline, because that would be too abstract. On the other hand, you want to avoid that a framework is too detailed and would block every sensitive collaboration a priori. We have to strike a balance, though that’s easier said than done.’
What are these two committees?
Following geopolitical turmoil and specifically the situation in Israel and the occupied territories, the UT decided to establish two committees to determine how to deal with collaborations with partners from so-called ‘conflict regions’. One committee, the Strategic Committee on Institutional Collaboration, Ethics and Moral Dilemmas (SCEMD), sets up a framework regarding these collaborations. The other committee, the Advisory Committee Moral Dilemmas (ACMD) gives advice per case – based on the framework and other UT regulations. Secretary to both committees is Masoome Shariat (S&P). For security reasons, the member of the latter committee are not publicly disclosed. The executive board makes the final decision, should a faculty board deviate from an advice by the ACMD.
What matters have been on the table of this committee already?
Haverkort: ‘For now, we’re still figuring out a way of working and defining the framework. One major topic we have to think about, are the collaborations with the Defence area – now that we know a lot of things will happen in that field.’
Has the other committee, the ACMD, started yet?
Medendorp: ‘Yes, they already advised on five different cases.’
Without a framework?
Medendorp: ‘Without a framework provided by the SCEMD, to be precise. We did already have a code of ethics in place for instance. And there was also an earlier decision made by the executive board about the collaboration with institutions in conflict areas.’
On the left: Boudewijn Haverkort, on the right: Erwin Medendorp.
I understood that the identities of the members of this other committee are anonymous, hence their unavailability for an interview. What can you tell about the advice they gave so far? Are those publicly available?
Medendorp: ‘There will be a public – anonymized – version available of all the advices given, to be published every three months. That way, people will know the reasoning behind an advice and all the considerations involved. We want to be transparent about that. The current advices given were focused on fossil fuel collaboration and collaboration with institutions in conflict areas.’
When the foundation of both committees were discussed, the ‘elephant in the room’ was the collaboration with Israeli institutions. Have the committees already formed a view or advice on that?
Medendorp: ‘It has happened in at least one case that the ACMD has given a negative advice about a collaboration with an partner form a conflict area. For now, there are no changes foreseen when it comes to already existing collaborations. Yet, the executive board is looking at adding a clause to terminate a contract once a situation develops in such a way that it doesn’t align with our values anymore.’
Haverkort: ‘It’s something we hope to include in the framework. For now, it already helps that we have the Red Cross list of conflict areas as a reference. It’s good that we can rely on a credible source with authority.’
How do both committees align with each other?
Haverkort: ‘There is no hierarchical structure; rather, it is an interaction, with one committee not standing above the other. We are kept informed about the other committee’s advices, so that we can learn from them. They use our framework to weigh up their advice.’
Since these kinds of topics can spur controversies, emotions and are quite heavily debated, how does this committee hope to help the university make these difficult decisions?
Haverkort: ‘I think part of what we should stand for are the core values of this university.’
Medendorp: ‘There is this one sentence in our code of ethics: ‘The University of Twente does not want to be involved in activities that affect the dignity of people’. That is a sentence that says both everything and nothing in itself. So, what does it mean within the context of our way of working?’
Haverkort: ‘That is the difficult question we’re trying to answer. So, we hope to get more clarity on this, to give guidance and starting points to the community. But when it comes to ethics, it’s not a law of physics. There are a lot of grey areas.’
Medendorp: ‘What’s happening in the world can change within the blink of an eye. A few years ago, we couldn’t have imagined having difficult discussions about the US, yet here we are. That’s why I expect this committee – and the other – to stick around and keep evolving.’
