On Wednesday night March 17 the Executive Board of the three TUs had convened an expedited meeting at the Utrecht Grand Hotel Karel V to clear the air between TU/e and the UT. According to the letter to drs. Frits Lagendijk, chairman of the Twente University Council, an open-hearted conversation has led to the finding that two arguments are of crucial importance in the event of a moveover made by a scientist. On the one hand, there is the position of the scientist involved, who in view of the delicate situation would like talks about a possible move to be dealt with confidentially. On the other hand, administrative responsibility renders it undesirable that a partner institution, in this case being the UT, is presented with a fait accompli. The relative weight of these two arguments varies as discussions about a switchover progress. If the latter argument gains importance, drs. Dirk Jan van den Berg, Board chairman of Delft University of Technology and of the executive board of the 3TU.Federation, posits that there may at some point be a ‘tilting moment’, when the TU/e Executive Board should have decided to inform its colleagues in Twente. That moment was not assessed properly by the Executive Board of TU/e, which caused the announcement of the switchover to come too late. For this late announcement Executive Board chairman ing. Amandus Lundqvist and Rector prof. dr. ir. Hans van Duijn have apologized to their Twente colleagues, who have accepted the apologies.

For the future the three TUs want to maintain their joint Strategy memo. With a view to possible cutbacks the letter stresses once again that close cooperation at this moment is of great importance. (HK)/.