Now and again in recent years my listening ear has heard a lot of 'blah, blah, blah' in conversations and I've had to put my questions in various ways to ensure I finally got some answers. Needlessly time-consuming for both parties, such a waste. On other occasions my ear had to work overtime in the presence of the ‘scatterbrain speakers’ and the ‘I-like-the-sound-of-my-own-voice speakers’. And sometimes my ear wasn't even granted an opportunity to listen because a reluctance to be interviewed won the day.

But, above all, I can look back on many good conversations. And when I stop and think, the best interviews were those in which the person sitting across from me was also listening closely. That was recently the case in my conversation with Bert Meijer, in which this passionate academic was receptive to my questions and formulated clear and well-considered answers. Here's the bottom line: one listening ear is not enough.

I hope that many members of the TU/e community will offer a listening ear and, above all, that they will find one at this fantastic initiative: the TU/e Listening Line.

Thank you to everyone with whom I've had the chance to use my listening ear and I wish everyone at TU/e very many listening ears! So valuable in this corona crisis in which we have lost face-to-face contact, and no less so in the weeks and months after.