Early August, I returned from my holidays. The first week I got back, I got to see the financial budget draft for my group (MNF) and the department (MolMat, S&T faculty), which showed huge deficits for both the department and for my group, and a single, combined budget for both my group and another, recently split-off group. In the second week, we had a lab safety incident in the department. Together with other incidents, this led to the suspension of all evening and weekend work, and to a tightening of the range of chemicals that can be used. The third week, I heard about the social safety situation at EEMCS. In the fourth week since my return, I have gone back to sleeping poorly again. These are all facts. For my own sanity, I need to see how these issues are connected, which I will try by first analysing the facts and then reflecting on them.
The troublesome financial situation of UT, and of some of the faculties in particular, has led to serious reorganisations and many forced lay-offs. At the end of last year, the Executive Board announced that they found a mistake in the overall finances, and that there was no deficit after all. Yet, the distribution of budget over the faculties has changed drastically – due to a new financial model – causing severe shortages at some of the faculties, while others prosper. For my group, it means that reserves that have been left untouched for more than twenty years (because we were never allowed to use them), are projected to evaporate within the coming year and a half, after which we’ll dive into deep red numbers. Even though I am the first supervisor of ten PhD students and several postdocs, all financed through external projects. All facts.
UT is currently implementing the faculty harmonisation strategy, aiming to ’standardise the administrative, operational, and financial frameworks across all five UT faculties’. As a result, S&T has been talking about and struggling with department formation for over ten years already. Despite the long period, departments and faculties still struggle with definitions, governance, and responsibilities. In my department, the reorganisation led to the formation of a new group, consisting of PIs partly from my group and partly from a dismantled group. The faculty decided, however, that its finances are placed under my group, which leads to muddled responsibilities for both groups. Situations like this are clear examples of the lack of clarity. All facts.
Although no one was injured in the lab incident this August, it revealed two direct human errors. Unfortunately, it was not the only incident we have seen in the department and in the faculty. In other departments, faculties, and the cleanroom, there have been lab issues as well. Social safety issues are not new either, and they are not limited to the case now exposed at EEMCS. The recent threat with fines by the national labour inspection underscores UT’s general inefficacy in dealing with work pressure and inappropriate behaviour. All facts.
Now reflections: what does it all mean, and how does it all connect? The harmonisation strategy at the organisational and financial level has failed. Standardisation of administrative, operational, and financial frameworks does not in itself provide a fair distribution of means. The resulting insecurity about finances and people’s own job positions does not lead to the intended ’UT operating more as a single community and organisation rather than as a loose collection of distinct faculties‘. On the contrary, when people have the idea that they get an unfair share of the pie, they neither feel wanted nor more inclined to help other UT community members.
All personal safety issues that have arisen over the past years are a direct effect of lost feelings of belonging, of responsibility, and of trust, trickling down from management to group leaders and below. When people feel powerless, they will behave less responsibly. The main problem with the existing social safety issues is not that they can occur, but that they are allowed to drag on. The inability to solve real problems is a long-standing, recurring feature of our organisation that adds to the growing distrust and sense of powerlessness. There is a good Dutch saying: ’Vertrouwen komt te voet maar gaat te paard’; lost trust will not be regained easily or quickly.
Ultimately, the board – and I’ll explicitly exclude the freshly appointed chairman – has failed. They have hidden behind a strategy of forced standardisation, placing the burden of the required organisational changes on the shoulders of deans, without giving them the means and the support to solve the problems. Instead, they should have focused on real governance: setting an open framework for organisation and administration with a fair distribution of means, so that all can flourish, and then positively interact from a foundation of dignity and strength.
