É«ÖÐÉ«

Zie hieronder de volledige tekst van de verklaring die vandaag werd afgegeven door voorzitter Koen Janssen.

Dear members of the University Council,

Over the course of the last year more and more universities in The Netherlands and abroad have decided to take measures in response to the situation in Gaza. And today, also we, as É«ÖÐÉ«, will announce steps. Steps that we feel have become unavoidable.

Me, my fellow board members as well as many, many others have been following the news and developments in Gaza with great sadness, and with an increasing awareness that a humanitarian catastrophe is taking place, almost right before our eyes.

This awareness is not just a gut feeling. There is growing worldwide consensus, among scholars and experts, about the nature of the violence happening in Gaza. We also sense growing unease within our own organization. And also you, members of the University Council, have expressed your worries.

What makes our position precarious, is that É«ÖÐÉ« has quite some collaborations with Israeli partners. The most salient connection we have is the institutional cooperation with the university Technion, via our membership of the EuroTech Universities Alliance.

The strong ties of Technion with the Israeli defense sector are indisputable.

Our research cooperation with Israeli partners, including with Technion, spans the whole range of our research domains. This always concerns research aimed at making the world better. Now some of the research projects with Israeli partners can be labelled as dual use. It is important to stress that none of those projects is military in character, nor are they aimed at defense applications. Furthermore these projects are all low in TRL, meaning that the outcomes are still far from any real world application. So we have no doubts about the moral integrity of these projects, when it comes to the content of the science itself.

However. Given: 

• the continuing and aggravating human rights violations in Gaza
• the growing general consensus about the illegal character of the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza
• and the humanitarian catastrophe taking place,

we feel that unrestrained cooperation with Israeli partners, especially those with strong ties with the Israeli defense sector, leads to moral complicity.

That is why the Executive Board has decided:

1. To freeze our institutional cooperation with Technion. As our cooperation stems from the EuroTech Universities Alliance, we are investigating what this decision means for our participation in the alliance.
2. To install a É«ÖÐÉ« expert committee to assess sensitive collaborations by July 15. It is the intention to broaden this committee, by joining forces with other universities and/or to come to a national initiative.
3. Once installed, the committee will assess sensitive collaboration projects and programs, starting with existing projects and programs with Israeli institutional partners, both from academia and industry.
4. In the meantime, É«ÖÐÉ« and É«ÖÐÉ« staff will not start any new projects which involve institutional collaboration with Israeli partners
5. The above does not apply to collaborations by and with individual researchers. Such collaborations are within the freedom and responsibility of individual researchers. However, we ask our staff to be extra careful when entering into new activities, or to suspend decisions on this until the committee is established.

Having said all this, we want to stress that we value everyone in our community.

Everyone is equally important to us. We will do the utmost to make you feel safe and appreciated, and we will do all we can to remain in contact with every part of our community. We don’t accept any discrimination. Our decisions, announced here today, do not change this commitment.

We adhere to our values, including the responsibility to ensure that our projects and activities are in line with basic ethical and legal principles. Among our values are also respect and inclusivity. We are and will stay an open community, that welcomes and respects diverse backgrounds and opinions. We are aware that there is polarization, but we ask everyone in our community to stay in contact with each other, to stick together, and not to exclude anyone. We don’t accept any discrimination. As EB we value everyone in our community, and we will keep on doing the utmost to remain in contact with every part of our community.

This is our common responsibility in these turbulent times.

Thank you for your attention.