Through Klis, an EngD project on wireless charging of moving vehicles has been carried out at TU/e. There is also an ongoing project with student team SOLID, which focuses on keeping vital infrastructure operational. The team’s technology, in which energy is stored in iron pellets, could serve as an emergency power supply for a hospital in a war situation. In a case study using a Ukrainian hospital as an example, the students are now exploring how feasible that would be. “It offers a question that is socially relevant,” explains business manager Florian van den Dool about the decision to work with Defense. “We hope they see us as a serious potential partner in this.”

Emergency kit

According to Klis, there are signs that students’ willingness to work with Defense is increasing. He sees, for instance, that more and more students are signing up as reservists. There are no figures available on this, because Defense does not track where reservists study. There is, however, a clear increase in the number of TU/e students working at Defensity College, a program that allows students to work for Defense alongside their studies, at their own level and within their own field of expertise. Since its founding in 2015, ten TU/e student employees have completed the program, a Defense spokesperson reports. Currently, fifteen TU/e students are active in the program.

According to dean Van Houtum, many people see collaborating with Defense as contributing to a societal challenge, just as is the case with research in the field of the energy transition. “You can sense that a societal shift is underway,” adds Hommerson. “In the past, no one ever talked about Defense; now suddenly we’re all told to buy an emergency kit to last us 72 hours.”

Bright minds

It is concerns about geopolitical tensions and national security that are increasing researchers’ and students’ willingness at TU/e to collaborate with Defense, Van Houtum believes. He has seen that willingness rise sharply, particularly over the past year, “after Rutte’s speech.” The Russian invasion of Ukraine plays a role in this, says Hommerson, but she also mentions potential aggression in the South China Sea and a blockade of Taiwan. That region is home to, among others, TSMC, one of the world’s largest chip manufacturers. “If something escalates there, the global chip supply will be in serious jeopardy.”

In addition, there is also non-traditional warfare going on. As an example, she points to the drones that have recently appeared at multiple airports. “You see various actors, state and non-state, doing their best to destabilize our societies. Also through, for instance, cyberattacks or attacks on the energy network. Those are our fields of expertise here at TU/e. That’s why Robert-Jan Smits said at the time: can we not bring our bright minds together when needed?” He then proposed setting up a “smart reserve.”

That does not mean the university should blindly dive into a close partnership with Defense. It is no coincidence that Hommerson and Van Houtum have been working on this exploratory study since the beginning of this year. It is time-consuming not only because it is difficult to inventory all TU/e projects involving Defense, the associated funding flows, the various departments within the ministry, and the themes where overlaps exist. There is also another major component that demands attention: ethical considerations. To support them in this, the university set up an ad-hoc ethics committee for defense-related research before the summer.

Ethical frameworks

The ad-hoc committee is led by full professor Filippo Santoni de Sio of the Philosophy and Ethics group within IE&IS. The committee is “ad-hoc” because the university wanted to establish it quickly once it became clear that collaboration with Defense would increase. This advisory body is developing an ethical review framework for these collaborations and aims to raise the community’s awareness of the ethical considerations involved. The committee may later become part of a broader committee for sensitive collaborations, which is currently being developed by Niek Lopes Cardozo as quartermaster.

In contrast to the broader committee, the ad-hoc committee is already operational and is assessing current and upcoming research projects with Defense that researchers submit to it. The committee issues non-binding advice on these projects. So far, six applications have been reviewed; all of them received the green light. “The committee would advise against research into technologies with a clearly offensive application, or with ethically or legally problematic aims,” says Santoni de Sio.

Defensive versus offensive

Among other things, researchers must make ethical considerations in the area of dual use (see text box). The term refers to research that can be used for different purposes, Santoni de Sio explains. “There is defensive versus offensive use, but also civilian versus military use.” According to him, researchers must think carefully about the extent to which, and under what conditions, a technology developed for civilian or defensive purposes could be turned into an offensive technology. If that transformation is easy, it does not necessarily mean that the research should not be carried out. “You could also look at how to design the technology in such a way that it becomes, for example, harder to use it for offensive purposes.”

One TU/e researcher who collaborates extensively with Defense is Rob Basten, who often works together with fellow researcher Loe Schlicher. He is involved in two research projects funded by the European Defence Fund, the aforementioned DISCMAM and ROLIAC. He collaborates with the air force, the army, and the navy, as well as with the Materiel and IT Command (COMMIT): “because my work focuses on performing maintenance on equipment as efficiently and effectively as possible.” When it comes to not being able to share research results, Basten does not experience a fundamental difference between working with industry and with Defense. 

The methods he develops are largely suitable for civilian use, but are sometimes specifically intended for Defense. “I would not work on a case that revolves around specific weapons. But you also have to be realistic: most of the results I obtain could be used for weapons as well. Drawing a precise line is a case-by-case decision.” Basten has never rejected an entire Defense-related study because of ethical objections. “I did once turn down a research project with the tobacco industry.”

Scenario sketches

Basten also teaches courses that are relevant to Defense, although he believes that the majority of courses at the university could be relevant for defensive applications: “Pretty much everything that is important in a civilian context is also important for Defense.” In one of his courses, he invites a guest lecturer from the Royal Netherlands Air Force. And in exams, he sometimes uses scenarios from a military mission in which spare parts for vehicles need to be delivered.

Basten has supervised multiple PhD candidates and even more master’s students who carried out research with or at Defense. Master’s students sometimes end up doing their graduation project with the armed forces or at Defense through him. He discusses ethical considerations with PhD candidates “but not in all cases with master’s and bachelor’s students. I always make it clear that if they do not want to work with Defense, that is absolutely fine, though.”

For him, the main added value of the collaboration lies in contributing to the resilience of the Netherlands and its partners. “And Defense is often at the forefront of developments.”

Defense research will not become dominant at TU/e, and the university has no desire to close itself off, Van Houtum reassures. “We are a public institution and want to remain as open as possible.” Now that the exploratory phase is coming to an end, he and Hommerson can start looking at concrete next steps. The process will begin with information sessions for the entire TU/e community. There are also early ideas for a possible minor in collaboration with Defense and a potential Flagship in the area of Security & Resilience, but whether these will actually be launched is far from certain.

“Nobody wants war”

First, the university and Defense need to figure out how to handle tricky issues such as maintaining open science. UNL is working with Defense on a framework agreement. This should define the basic conditions for potential collaborations. In doing so, UNL is also taking bottlenecks into account, such as the issue of open science. One specific challenge that advisor Bosch sees lies in the (rapid) applicability of research. “The difficulty is that research at a university is normally geared toward advancing a field, and not necessarily toward making research rapidly applicable in practice. The urgency to have something operational quickly does not always align with a university’s mission.”

Hommerson agrees. For the university, it is impossible to respond to a call for a prototype that has to be ready within six months, she notes. “But for a war in six or seven years’ time you can design very solid innovation programs.” Still, nobody wants war, emphasizes Klis from MINDbase, and it is precisely for that reason that Defense must scale up, he argues. “We all want peace, but that is not the reality. We need to ensure that we can fight if necessary, so that we can also provide enough deterrence as NATO. If our armed forces are strong enough, we hope it won’t even occur to other countries to invade a NATO member state.”

This article was translated using AI-assisted tools and reviewed by an editor.