Last month, TU/e revised its statement on partnerships with Israeli institutions. The university stated that it would freeze institutional collaboration with the Israeli university Technion and would establish a committee before July 15 to assess sensitive collaborations. This directly affects the allocation of new PhD positions through the EuroTech PhD program, which was originally scheduled for the beginning of July. That decision has now been postponed to September.

The EuroTech PhD program is an initiative of the TU/e itself. “With this program, we aim to strengthen collaborations with EuroTech partner institutions,” explained university spokesperson Ivo Jongsma. “Researchers at TU/e are offered partially funded PhD positions, under the condition that the doctoral research is conducted in partnership with a EuroTech institution, with co-supervision — meaning the PhD candidate is guided both by a TU/e supervisor and a supervisor from the partner university.”

As part of the four-year PhD trajectory, the candidate is expected to spend six months at the partner institution. The program has existed since 2022. Since then, TU/e has awarded funding for 27 PhD positions — two of which involve Technion. “Because those are ongoing projects, they will continue as planned, in line with the Executive Board’s decision,” said Jongsma. “However, they will be reviewed later by the new Committee for Sensitive Collaborations.”

Horizon Europe

A decision was initially planned for the beginning of July regarding the six PhD positions for this year. “We postponed that to September to avoid starting new projects that may soon need to be halted, depending on the committee’s evaluation,” says Jongsma. “The applicants have been informed.”

In addition, an application is still pending for a project under Horizon Europe, the European Union’s research and innovation program, in which Israel also participates. TU/e is part of several Horizon consortia, including one involving an Israeli partner. For this reason, TU/e ​​has requested a postponement of several weeks for the project in question in Brussels as a result of the decision to establish the Committee for Sensitive Collaborations.

Committee for Sensitive Collaborations

In response to questions about the implementation of the decision to suspend collaborations with Israeli partners, university spokesperson Ivo Jongsma stated that “work is underway to operationalize the decision.” He added: “What’s especially important is the clarification of the measure to not start any new institutional partnerships until the committee is active. The Executive Board will make decisions on this as soon as possible.”

The Executive Board has drafted a proposal detailing the roles and expected time commitments of committee members. It is also considering candidates to fill those roles. The university still aims to establish the committee by July 15. Once formed, the committee will begin developing a framework to evaluate new and existing projects.

In the meantime, TU/e has launched an intranet page dedicated to sensitive collaborations, which will be continuously updated with the latest information.