Over the past period, the Executive Board (EB) of the University of Twente met several times with a delegation from Enschede Students for Palestine (ESP). We spoke about how UT is dealing with the situation in Israel and Gaza, but also with similar situations elsewhere in the world.
The EB appreciated the group's dedication to this societal issue. We understand them very well: the situation in Israel and Gaza is intense and causes great personal suffering for many. This situation sometimes comes very close for our community, as do conflicts and wars in other places around the globe.
In additional meetings, ESP members exchanged views at length with UT experts on the moral and ethical dilemmas and complex trade-offs of international collaborations and partnerships.
UT has a careful process in place around entering into collaborations. ESP's input has contributed positively to how we, as UT, want to deal with moral-ethical dilemmas in collaborations within this process. This is an important topic that we as a university want and need to learn. We need to ensure that we ask ourselves the right questions about the desirability of specific collaborations. In the coming period, UT experts will continue to develop an ethical-moral framework. The exchanges of views with ESP around the moral and ethical dilemmas has been valuable input for this.
ESP's expectations regarding existing agreements around collaborations and the EB's view on how we, as UT, should address this issue do not coincide. As the Executive Board, we found it valuable to exchange insights to contribute to an even better assurance of adequately dealing with moral-ethical dilemmas in our daily work.
