A large number of physics and chemistry Departments are coping with dropping student numbers and budget cuts. However, these disciplines are of crucial importance to the business community, says Minister Plasterk, and, moreover, they are the underpinning of a ‘sound scientific infrastructure’.
For this reason Plasterk is reserving twenty million euros every year between 2011 and 2016 for university education and research in physics and chemistry. Fourteen million has been earmarked for the Departments, which can make proposals themselves for the manner in which the money will be spent. The rest will be divided via research financier NWO among individual researchers. A committee led by Douwe Breimer, former Rector Magnificus of Leiden University, will advise Plasterk next spring about the distribution of the money.

Prof. dr. Peter Hilbers (BMT) is the main submitter of the first sector plan for physics and chemistry on behalf of TU/e. He is pleased about the news. “It is a good signal and very important for the knowledge sector that extra funds should be made available.” Hilbers thinks that some kind of ‘land consolidation’ will take place in the wings, whereby universities will mutually attune their education and research so as not to duplicate each other and exploit the strength of their individual institutions.
Hilbers does make a reservation about the preconditions set by the Breimer committee. Thus, a Bachelor program in physics and chemistry is alleged to be unviable unless the annual influx of students is one hundred. For a Master study this minimum should be at least twenty. Those are numbers that many, if not all universities have trouble attaining. “It remains to be seen what the committee will do with this given.” (FvO)/.