On Tuesday 2 February we received the sad news that our colleague Sjoerd van Tongeren, Executive Director of the IGS research institute, has passed away. His death came completely unexpectedly at the age of 50.
Sjoerd, accompanied by his wife Nienke, had travelled together with the UT Rector Ed Brinksma to Graz (Austria) for a meeting of the European network for energy research eseia, of which he was the treasurer. While there he suffered a severe heart attack and was admitted to the university hospital. Despite all efforts to save him he did not recover from this sudden event.
Sjoerd began studying Philosophy of Science, Technology & Society at the University of Twente in 1986. He was an unusually dedicated student, as reflected by his active role in the student association Taste and his membership on the University Council. In addition to his studies he was also active in a number of start-up companies.
Ultimately he never completed this course of studies (something he sometimes regretted many years later). From 1996 onwards he was employed at UT as a temporary policy worker at the Office of Policy Support. This was initially on a contract basis for shorter periods where he carried out a few special tasks, for instance for CHEPS, and from 1 July 1999 onwards on a permanent basis. In this post he made important contributions to various projects, such as setting up the Kennispark.
In 2005, the post of Executive Director at IGS became vacant. At the suggestion of his predecessor Leo Goedegebuure, Sjoerd was appointed to this position. At that time the IGS institute, like all the other institutes, was quite new and thus required development. From these early days onwards Sjoerd made a huge contribution to the development of sound, future-oriented research programmes and to the inclusion of IGS in the relevant national and international networks of companies, government bodies and societal organizations. It is hard to overestimate his importance to IGS and thus to the development of UT research in the social and behavioural sciences.
Sjoerd had clear ideas about his task: to help researchers, to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit, to develop young talent, to forge connections. In recent years he put these ideas into practice with increasing success. Many young researchers at IGS benefited from his dynamism. He came up with solutions to situations that others might have regarded as insoluble. He helped researchers to find their way through the intricacies of EU research funding, and he took them along to other institutes and to companies. During all these activities he never lost sight of the human aspects. For Sjoerd, the ideal university was a community of dedicated and involved staff and students, and the research institute was one hundred percent at the service of this community.
In recent years Sjoerd created many partnerships, for instance with the city of Curitiba in Brazil and with European energy researchers in the aforementioned eseia network, as well as with the Centre for Risk Management, Safety and Security. He set up the IGS Datalab, and in the process initiated close collaboration with Statistics Netherlands (CBS), and at the same time he prepared partnerships with universities in China and Africa. All these initiatives are now bearing fruit. In recent years, thanks also to Sjoerd, IGS has become extremely successful in acquiring European research funding.
Sjoerd’s sudden death means a great loss for the IGS team and for everyone with whom he worked at the UT and further afield. The loss is even greater for his wife Nienke, and for their children Anniek and Maarten. We wish them all possible strength in the coming period.
We have set up a book of condolences in the Atrium of Ravelijn. You can enter your condolences here until Wednesday 10 February.
