Short news
On Tuesday 3 March, the Dutch House of Representatives passed a motion to make it possible to give higher professional education (HBO) students a basic grant when they pursue a university master’s degree.
HBO students will only receive such a basic grant if they choose to pursue a master’s degree at a university of applied sciences. University students, on the other hand, always receive a basic grant for their master’s degree, regardless of whether they pursue it at an HBO or a university.
Insufficient funds
The appeal court judge had previously described the rules as “not entirely watertight”, but left it to politicians to amend them. Former education minister Robbert Dijkgraaf was also unable to explain them, but he had already stepped down by that point. His successor, Eppo Bruins, did not have the funds to do so.
Now that a new cabinet has taken office, the CDA is making an attempt. Member of Parliament Jeltje Straatman considers the rules unfair and calls on the government to ‘explore a legislative amendment that would remove this inequality’. Her motion received 146 out of 150 votes on Tuesday. Only the SGP and Mona Keijzer voted against it.
The Dutch company Hardt Hyperloop has gone bankrupt. The company was founded in 2016 by former members of the Delft Hyperloop student team. What are the consequences for the current dream team?
“It’s especially sad to see a player in the hyperloop sector go bankrupt,” says team captain Elise Terwogt. “But it doesn’t have much impact on us. We were in contact with Hardt, but we are not financially involved. We are completely separate from it.”
The hyperloop is a futuristic transport concept in which capsules, also known as “pods”, travel at enormous speeds through vacuum tubes. The idea began in 2015 as a challenge from Elon Musk to student teams and industry. According to Terwogt, it is difficult to say exactly how big the hyperloop industry currently is. “There are quite a few players involved. Thirty-four teams from all over the world will be participating in the competition this summer.”
The Delft hyperloop team is busy making final preparations for the presentation of their new design. “We build a completely new prototype every year. This year, we have a full-scale model that we can test not only on our own track, but also at the European hyperloop centre in Veendam.”
- The reveal of the new design will take place on Thursday 12 March in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft.
On Wednesday 18 March, students and staff of TU Delft will be able to plant trees between teaching building 35 and Freezone D, a green strip near the Executive Board office. On that day, the university is organising the “TU Delft Tree Festival” as part of National Tree Day.
TU Delft members who want to plant a tree can register online for two time slots: a morning slot from 10:00 to 11:30 and an afternoon slot from 12:00 to 13:30. The university will provide not only the trees themselves, but also other materials such as shovels. Please note: there is a maximum number of participants.
Every year, TU Delft selects a new location on campus for National Tree Day. In 2025, for example, trees were planted near the Stud building (the round building next to the auditorium), and the year before that, it was the turn of the Berlage park near the Science Centre.
- You can register via this link.
A number of employees at DUO will go on strike on Tuesday, 3 March, joining other civil servants across the country. The National Student Union (LSVb) supports the strike, it said in a press release.
Because of the strike, DUO may be less reachable by phone. “There will be people answering calls, as always. It just might be slightly fewer than usual,” a DUO spokesperson said.
Pay freeze
“Striking is a right,” the spokesperson continued. “It’s good that this right exists. As civil servants, we’ve been placed on a pay freeze, and the FNV union takes issue with that. Some colleagues are now responding to the call to strike.”
The reason for the strike is that civil servants are not receiving a salary increase, meaning they must absorb inflation themselves. This was one of the ways the previous government planned to cut public spending.
This will not be the only day of action. The FNV and other unions are planning a large demonstration in The Hague on 14 April. The arrival of the new government does not appear to change that for now.
HOP, Bas Belleman/ Delta
Take care of each other. That message is central to an intranet message from the Executive Board about the flare-up of violence in the Middle East: ‘the attacks by the US and Israel on Iran’ and ‘Iran’s missile strikes in the region’.
“The images of violence, destruction and casualties are deeply affecting,” writes the Executive Board. “Our thoughts are with our students and colleagues who have personal ties to people in the affected areas. We realise that this situation evokes strong feelings among many students and colleagues in our community. We empathise with everyone who is experiencing fear and uncertainty.”
Guidance
The Executive Board emphasises that students and staff who are directly or indirectly affected are not alone. There are ‘study or work-related guidance, offering mental health support, facilitating discussions with a confidential advisor, or working together to find suitable solutions within existing education and work agreements’.
The board asks for care for one another: “Why not ask your worried colleagues or fellow students how they are doing more often? Give each other space to express concerns. Get involved and show interest. Small gestures can mean a lot.”
In the message, the Executive Board also says that TU Delft is monitoring the safety of students and staff who are in countries where violence is currently taking place. That is ‘top priority’.
A member of the far-right Groot-Nederlandse Studentenvereniging (Great Netherlands Student Association) in Nijmegen was sentenced last week to two years in prison, one of which is probational, for illegal possession of weapons.
The student was arrested last summer on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack. Weapons and ammunition were found in a building near his home. According to the student, he only possessed these weapons because he was fascinated by weapons and how they work, but the judge did not accept this explanation. The possession of weapons without a licence poses “a significant and unacceptable risk”, the judge stated (in Dutch). The judge also found it worrying that the student had “the knowledge and skills to manufacture various types of ammunition himself”.
‘Radicalisation process’
The student’s beliefs played a role in the verdict. The probation service, which issued a recommendation, described the student’s radicalisation as worrying and spoke of a “fine line” between the student’s activism and extremism. The 25-year-old man is a member of the controversial Groot-Nederlandse Studentenvereniging and the nationalist Geuzenbond, a far-right youth organisation. Both organisations advocate, among other things, the merger of the Netherlands and Flanders into a single nation state: “Dietsland”.
The youth organisations regularly refer to extremist ideology, writes de Volkskrant, for example by displaying the Prince’s Flag (which was also used by the National Socialist Movement NSB) and making the so-called OK gesture, which is considered a “white power” sign in neo-Nazi circles. (HOP, NB)
What good are innovative new materials if they cannot be used? The new BioBuild Lab at the TU Delft Green Village aims to change that, with construction that started this week.
The construction sector is highly polluting. Biobased materials, which are derived from renewable biological resources, should offer a solution. But how well do these materials perform in practice? This should become clear in the new test facility.
From the end of 2026, architecture students and researchers, as well as external parties, will be able to use it for experiments, certification tests and the construction of scale models. In addition, the building itself is also part of the experiment, with biobased materials being tested directly in real-life conditions.
Dutch science funding organisation NWO awards Vici grants to 39 leading researchers. Ten percent of all applications are approved. Delft, like VU University Amsterdam and Wageningen University, has been awarded four grants.
The Vici grant of up to 1.5 million euros is intended for “highly experienced” scientists. The money will enable them to further expand their research groups and conduct innovative research.
The winners are conducting research into a wide variety of topics. These include hidden viruses in insects, prostate cancer and the so-called “welfare wall”: people with little money who do not make use of government services such as benefits, even though they are entitled to them.
10 per cent awarded
Of the 384 preliminary applications received by NWO for the Vici round 2025, 10 per cent will be awarded – 2 percentage points less than last year. Eighteen grants will go to women and 21 to men.
In Delft, there are three projects aimed at making the invisible visible and one into ultimately creating large quantum networks:
- Experimental astronomer Akira Endo (EEMCS) is working on a new instrument for a telescope in Chile to unravel how matter clumped together and how the first stars were formed.
- Arjen Jakobi (Bionanoscience) is developing new imaging techniques to follow, step by step, how our cells protect themselves against dangerous bacteria.
- How do cells form a human organ? David Maresca (Imaging Physics) will investigate this using ultrasonic waves.
- Tim Taminiau (QuTech) wants to build a new type of quantum bit based on silicon carbide to create everlasting entangled nodes and ultimately build large quantum networks.
The Vici grants, together with the Veni and Vidi grants, are part of the NWO Talent Programme. They are intended for scientists at different stages of their careers.
HOP, Hein Cuppen
On Wednesday, Geothermie Delft’s geothermal power plant officially became operational. From now on, part of the campus and three DUWO student flats (Mijnbouwplein, Stieltjesweg and Michiel de Ruyterweg) are now heated with hot water from deep underground.
“Opening a new heat source in this weather,” laughs Maaike Zwart, Delft’s Alderman for Sustainability, on the sunny Wednesday afternoon at the geothermal power plant on campus. There is no symbolic pressing of a button, no champagne or cheering crowds. The handful of journalists who have turned up are not allowed into the plant. There is little to see in front of the building where the press programme is taking place. Yet something truly fascinating is happening beneath our feet: water at a temperature of 78 degrees is being pumped up from a depth of around 2 kilometres underground. A sustainable way to heat the campus and three student complexes. “And affordable,” emphasises Zwart. “As an alderman, I can say that without hesitation.”
Fortunately, just a few neighbourhoods away in Buitenhof, it is possible to watch the excavation work. Long pipes are ready to be inserted into the ground. Men in orange vests are busy digging trenches. Here, the next neighbourhood is already being prepared for connection to the geothermal network. Soon, another 6,000 rental properties will be connected, with a final target of 15,000 homes in total.
The Delft geothermal power plant will not only serve as a source of heat but also as a source of scientific data. In this way, the university hopes to contribute to the expanding knowledge, including its application elsewhere in the Netherlands. Until now, geothermal energy has mainly been used in greenhouse horticulture, but new measurements should provide insight into how geothermal energy can be used more efficiently, reliably and sustainably on a broader scale. “Geothermal energy is less interesting for new buildings,” says NetVerder director Koen Verbogt. “Those homes are better insulated. It is precisely the older, less well-insulated homes with a collective heating network that benefit greatly from the use of geothermal energy.”
To help reduce the housing shortage in the Netherlands, Chief Government Architect Francesco Veenstra wants to revive an old solution: dividing a single house into multiple residential units, a practice known as woningsplitsing (housing subdivision). This approach should provide short‑term relief for the housing market and create more living space for young people, he said on Wednesday in the Dutch television programme Nieuwsuur.
According to Veenstra, terraced houses — which make up a large part of the Dutch housing stock — are particularly suitable for this. He believes housing subdivision is especially a solution for young people and people in their twenties who are looking for a place to live. “It’s really meant for people who have moved back into their parents’ home,” he said. The Chief Government Architect, an independent adviser for the government, appeared on the programme to discuss the current cabinet’s plans for the Dutch housing market.
Delft made housing subdivision more difficult
His remarks are notable because the municipality of Delft actually made housing subdivision more difficult in 2021 and introduced regulations in 2017 to curb the splitting of homes into student rooms. The reason was the large number of single‑family homes being converted into student accommodations by investors and landlords. Research by Delta at the time showed that most subdivisions took place in the Voorhof district. A portion of the single‑family homes in this neighborhood has three floors, making them particularly suitable for creating multiple studio apartments.
