“Without this action the number of PhD candidates at TU/e would fall by 200 to 250, out of a total of around 1150”, said Executive Board chairman Peels. This decline has been in progress since 2011, and results from the previous cabinet’s decision to stop spending the revenues from Dutch natural gas sales on research.

The universities of technology are affected particularly hard by this decision, and are seeing a big reduction in their research capacity. “This is impacting our innovative strength, which in turn is having a negative effect on the knowledge-based economy of the Netherlands and that of the Brainport region in particular. We are very concerned about this development. TU/e is therefore making anticyclical investments to ensure that our research capacity and output are not too strongly affected. These are important investments, because each euro invested in research and innovation delivers many more euros in return for the knowledge economy.”

TU/e’s aim is for one PhD candidate funded by industry to be added to each one paid for by the university itself. Together that should provide 100 extra PhD positions. “We believe this construction represents an attractive offer for industry to start up new research projects together with us”, says Peels.

The university has already allocated the first two million euros in its 2013 budget. That wasn’t an easy task, as the Executive Board chairman emphasizes: “We’re all facing cutbacks in spending, which means we had to make a big effort to provide the required funding.”

The university intends to invest primarily in research within its defined Strategic Areas: Energy, Health and Smart Mobility. This is in line with the TU/e Strategic Plan 2020, which includes a focus on strengthening research capacity in these societally important themes.