Once again, I am dumbstruck by UT policies, and once again, I believe they go against principles which we should be defending rather than undermining.
When fellow professors from other European universities want to visit UT for a couple of months in the context of European projects, they are subjected to a screening procedure, for which they must be able to show a certificate of conduct from their home institution. Multiple guests expressed their unpleasant surprise, and they are even worried that their home institution might start wondering if they misbehaved in Twente.
Is this how we treat our fellow European citizens and academic colleagues? What kind of message do we give to them?
HR told me that this procedure was introduced by the Executive Board following requirements of the Dutch ministry. I fully understand the importance of knowledge security and screening of people from countries that may be connected to authoritarian regimes, but are we really serious about asking this for European citizens who are fully employed in European universities cooperating in European projects?
What happened to the value of openness, on which we created Europe and its freedom of movement? Even the Minister of Education, Culture, and Science sent a letter to the Dutch Parliament on 11 June 2026 warning that excessive screening goes against scientific research and international collaboration principles.
If even the ministry warns about this, why are we doing this?
Unfortunately, to me this is another example of a much broader and deeper problem within our university, and, more broadly, in academia in general. Management does not take the time anymore to talk to the academic community, and to really think what is good for it.
We should be asking guests to be thoroughly examined once there are broadly known internal misconducts that have not been effectively handled. As reported in Plato’s Apology of Socrates, at his death trial said: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’. Where has introspection, self-reflection, and critical thinking in academia gone?
I believe that as a team and community, together with management, we should not introduce administrative burdens, policies, or organisational changes without a proper discussion. Without that, it is not surprising that the community does not understand or support these changes.
Me and other colleagues experience this way of working as undermining of our good will and our academic values, and we find it personally demotivating.
I also believe this sends a damaging message: ‘I prefer not to trust you, and I basically do not care about your opinion or the consequences for you’. On this specific matter, I am thinking about reporting this to the European Commission if this is not changed.
Isn’t academia a democratic community of thinkers which critically always questions everything? ‘Nullius in verba’?
Plato, the founder of academia, in the Republic said: ‘Until philosophers become kings in our cities, or those who are now called kings and rulers genuinely and adequately practice philosophy; until political power and philosophy are united in the same person, there will be no end to the evils afflicting cities, nor, I believe, the human race.’
We are in a world that is sick, where several powerful politicians are far from being philosophers. They commit crimes and get away with it, and nobody dares to condemn their atrocities or defend basic human values, and where the very international institutions which were founded to defend such values are under attack.
The only place of hope for me and others is academia, a place where philosophy was born, where people are actually paid to think and discuss, where we can respectfully disagree, but where giving your opinion is always valued.
Management at all levels, including myself as a chair of a group, should not only openly defend such values, but lead by example, by talking to people, listening, discussing, practice critical thinking, and minimise time wasting on unnecessary bureaucracy in the interest of the wider academic community.
