As a TU/e employee, you’re fortunate to have a generous number of vacation days, and I make a point of using them every year. So, as you read this, I’m on a motorcycle trip. Together with a few good friends, I’m spending two weeks traveling from campsite to campsite on a route that takes us to and from the Polish-Ukrainian border.

For many colleagues, it’s difficult to make time for a vacation because there are classes to teach or research to conduct. There are also administrative records to keep up with, students to supervise, memos to write, programs to manage, committees to serve on, and the list goes on. Even writing columns has to happen every now and then.

I hope most people get a lot of energy and satisfaction from their daily work, but there are always less enjoyable tasks as well. The most frustrating activity for a scientist remains writing endless numbers of project proposals to convince research funders that they should finance your work or that of your PhD candidates.

The Eindhovens Dagblad reported on May 29 that Dutch scientists are successful at securing funding from the Horizon Europe program. We are happy to participate as well, because the program is financially attractive.

According to the statistics, for every euro the government invests in the program, we receive as much as two euros in return. That figure is rounded up; the universities themselves put the return at one euro seventy.

I do fear, however, that the time scientists spend writing project proposals or completing (and approving) timesheets is not included in that one euro invested by the government.

A common complaint among colleagues is that they find it difficult to truly disconnect from work. Some even take their laptops with them on vacation so they can spend spare hours working on that one paper or that one project proposal.

I can wholeheartedly recommend that they get a motorcycle license and go camping by motorcycle. The laptop will have to stay at home, because once you’ve packed your clothes, sleeping bag, air mattress, tent, camping chair and table, and cooking equipment (with or without a barbecue), there simply isn’t any room left for it!

Boudewijn van Dongen is a full professor of Process Analytics at TU/e. The views expressed in this column are his own.

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