Campus Coalition

What drives me to be active in the University Council is a simple but strong belief: good decisions matter, and they should always be transparent and well‑explained. Our university—and especially its Executive Board—has a responsibility to clearly show how it creates an environment where outstanding education can grow, supported and inspired by strong scientific research.

In my everyday work as programme director for Advanced Technology and Nanotechnology, I’m right in the middle of that reality. I work closely with students, lecturers, and researchers to continuously improve our programmes. That hands‑on experience gives me a perspective I’m happy to bring into the University Council—one that is grounded in daily practice and focused on the future of our education. I truly believe that when people with different backgrounds and experiences come together, the discussion becomes richer and the decisions better.

As chairman of the University Council, my goal is to create an open and constructive space where everyone feels encouraged to speak up and contribute. Good dialogue is the foundation of good governance. At the same time, I see it as essential to maintain strong connections with the participation councils in the faculties and service departments. Open communication and mutual trust across the university help us move forward together, with a shared vision for where we want to go.

Herbert Wormeester
Programme Director: Advanced Technology (BSc‑AT) and Nanotechnology (MSc‑NT)
h.wormeester@utwente.nl
+31 53 489 3148

As a current UC member, I have spent four years advocating for a sustainable, forward-thinking university. I want to continue this journey for another two years to bridge the gap between policy and practice. With experience spanning research, education, and LifeLongLearning (MS3), I offer a constructive, critical voice to shape the UT’s future plans early on. I am committed to providing essential, experienced advice, to shaping policies at an early stage, and to contributing to a future-proof UT.

Hi! My name is Aditya (Adi in short). Originally from Mumbai, India, I came to Enschede almost eight years ago to do my master’s in Sustainable Energy Technology at the UT. Then I became a PhD candidate in the EEMCS faculty and am now doing my post-doc in energy systems.

In a nutshell, I want to advocate for the interests of young researchers, such as PhD and PDEng candidates as well as PostDocs.

Specifically, my focus is on making team science a reality for young researchers and creating hierarchy-agnostic structures in academia. That’s a pretty bold goal - but I do believe that 21st-century problems require teamwork and that young researchers thrive most in interdisciplinary teams. I also think all researchers in the end are people who enjoy interaction and group work, and I want to, as a council member, advocate for a policy that slowly transforms our university from a collection of individual, isolated research groups into a vibrant collection of research teams.

I learnt a lot in my two-year journey on the council. An important lesson was navigating conversations with different teams at the UT with different interests. Having gone through many phases of research life and having been on the council, I want to direct my energy towards realizing this vision of team-based research culture rather than traditional hierarchies. Academia works best when research feels less like individual survival and more like a strong, supportive team sport.

Hope you agree and wish me luck!

Cheers,
Aditya Pappu (Adi)
a.pappu@utwente.nl

My name is Michaella Schepers, a staff member at the Centre for Education Support (CES), and for the past two years, I was a member of the University Council (UC). In the beginning, I had to adjust to the rhythm and dynamics of the UC. I had expected the decision-making process to run smoothly, but I now have a much better understanding of how policy is shaped and how decisions are actually made. It is not always quick and easy.

During the past term, the UC faced several critical situations in which we, too, had to make difficult choices. Choices that were sometimes hard to reconcile with the intended outcome.

The challenges for the coming years are significant. Topics such as behaviour and culture (Ik sta op), a financially healthy organisation, and student influx from the foundation for necessary transitions within the university.

That is why I find it important, in my second term as a UC member, to continue, together with my fellow council members, to drive, monitor, and discuss the processes that have been set in motion with decision-makers involved. This will help the Executive Board to make well-considered decisions.

You are always welcome to contact me with any questions or concerns, or to visit one of the UR’s walk-in consultation hours. Thank you for your confidence in me as your UR representative.

I look forward to contributing to the UT community for the next two years!

Michaella Schepers
Matching Coordinator CES 
m.d.schepers@utwente.nl
T: +31 53 489 7804

What motivates me to continue serving on the University Council is simple: I care deeply about the people at the UT and I am not afraid to speak up on topics that matter.

For the past twenty-five years, since arriving from Spain as a Physics Erasmus student, I have built my career across the UT in academic, support, and strategic roles, and since 2024 as a member of the University Council. Working in different parts of the university has given me a broad perspective and a strong drive to connect people and perspectives across our community.

I actively advocate for well-being, social safety, diversity, equity and inclusion, internationalization, and sustainable leadership. Through my roles as confidential advisor and co-chair of the DEI Advisory Board, I work to help create an environment where people feel safe, valued, and able to thrive.

I want to continue in the University Council because the UT needs people who ask critical questions, challenge difficult issues, and help turn dialogue into action. Now more than ever, I believe it is essential to have representatives who bring different voices together, connect policy with practice, and stand up for staff and students across the university to help build a resilient and future-proof UT.

My motivation to take part in the University Council stems from a strong commitment to ensure that the voices of researchers at the University of Twente are heard and addressed. In my role as a Grants Advisor in the Strategic Business Development department, I interact daily with researchers from all faculties, gaining unique insights into their challenges and needs. Having been an active researcher myself, I connect deeply with their concerns and am driven by a sense of justice and responsibility towards our research community.

On the University Council I aim to have my voice mirror the thoughts and feelings of the UT community. I do not shy away from holding the Executive Board accountable for their actions and call them out when needed. I do not hide behind words and am not afraid to speak my mind in a blunt manner. As a member of the University Council since 2024, I have regularly expressed my discontent and voted against Executive Board decisions, such as the 2025 UT budget. I am thus seen by other members as the person to go to for sending a strongly worded message to the Executive Board.

Catalin Popa
EU Grants Advisor

Apart from a few brief excursions elsewhere, I have been part of our university community since 2003. During that time, I have experienced the UT as a student, a researcher, a teacher and, since 2019, as a project leader in the Pre-University programme. For seven of those years, I worked part-time: four days a week I stood in front of the classroom, teaching physics to havo and vwo students in Hengelo.

During that period, I became chair of the central participation council of Scholengroep Carmel Hengelo. It was a rather rigid council, whose relationship with the central management was strained and which, as a result, struggled to make a constructive contribution. Through a long process of change, guided by an external coach, we managed to turn that around completely. That experience taught me how a proactive, constructively critical and professional participation council can contribute to strong, human-centred governance and transparent decision-making.

The University of Twente is currently going through a challenging period. I am convinced that strong and human-centred leadership is essential in such times, and that a participation council can make an important contribution to careful decision-making as a mirror, sounding board and critical discussion partner to the executive board. Broad representation of all members of our community is essential for fulfilling that role well. 

As a staff member of the Pre-University programme — an interfaculty unit — I am not connected to one faculty, but already work on behalf of everyone. What characterises me are my love of education, passion for complex problems, strategic and analytical insight, and the ability to choose different, sometimes surprising perspectives. I have extensive experience with participation and hope to bring that experience to the University Council, where I would like to contribute to an open, human-centred university in which trust, transparency and well-considered decision-making form the basis for high quality education, research and lasting societal impact.

Sander Wenderich
Project Leader Pre-university Programme (Pre-U)
s.wenderich@utwente.nl

My name is Sri and I’d like to briefly explain my motivation behind standing for the University Council on the Campus Coalition list.

I am originally from India and have been living in Europe for the past 12 years. My academic journey took me from Norway, where I did my higher education, to Luxembourg for my PhD and postdoctoral work. In 2024, I joined the University of Twente as an Assistant Professor in Manufacturing Systems. In my career so far, I have seen how deeply decisions about funding, staffing, education, and research affect the daily work and well-being of employees. I am standing for the University Council because I believe that those decisions must start with the people who teach, research, support, and build this university every day.

I want to strengthen the voice of employees in academic, research, and development matters. This means:

• Speaking up clearly against further layoffs and short-term fixes that undermine our long-term academic mission
• Arguing for a more democratic and transparent university, where choices are explained and open to real dialogue
• Bringing forward concrete, bottom-up ideas from teams and departments, and making sure they are heard at the central level

Campus Coalition’s values resonate strongly with me, which includes shared responsibility, openness, and a genuine bottom-up flow of information between units and central governance.

I want to be approachable, to listen carefully to colleagues, and to translate what I hear into clear questions, proposals, and positions in the council.

Outside my academic work, I practice and teach yoga. In the weekends, I travel to umpire (referee) Cricket matches across the Netherlands.

“If we want a strong UT, we must start by listening to the people who make UT what it is and build policies from their reality upwards.”

Sri Kolla

Assistant Professor in Manufacturing Systems (UT-ET-DPM)
s.kolla@utwente.nl
+31620021188

A close look at our finances

Only recently, after initially anticipating a deficit of around €3 million, the University of Twente reported a surplus of approximately €27 million. Tragically: before this became apparent, many colleagues had already lost their job. In order to make the UT a safe place to work again, we need to get grip on our finances. Also the participatory bodies benefit from more finance know-how.

I am professor of business administration. Before becoming a full-time academic, I run the annual planning of a large firm twice. For me it is particularly important to support the university council as much as possible in commercial and budgeting topics.

An eye on increasing participation

As a long-standing board member of the Association for More Democracy, I strongly believe in broad participation by all members of our university community. Four eyes see more than two. Participation rights do not expand automatically; the rights we currently have must be actively safeguarded, defended and expanded. During my multiple terms on the Faculty Council BMS, I have learned that meaningful participation requires continuous attention and advocacy.

These are the main reasons why I am running for the University Council. I would appreciate your support!

Holger Schiele
Professor of Business Administration
h.schiele@utwente.nl
+31 (0)53 489 5615

Ten years ago, my term as chair of the Faculty Council BMS ended. Since then, I have always had the plan to run for the election of the University Council. Many other activities and opportunities to contribute to the UT community crossed my path in the meantime, but now it is the right time for me to step forward and try to get elected for the University Council. I consider participation councils as essential for the functioning of universities and I find it important that different voices and opinions are heard. I value clear and open communication, respecting everyone’s opinions.

I’d like to contribute to decision-making processes using my experience in research and teaching, and my experience in different committees and participatory bodies. I’d like to closely collaborate with the other members, to listen to the opinions of a variety of UT employees in order to provide well-thought-out advice to the executive board.

I sincerely hope to get the chance to contribute to a strong, future-proof university in the next two years as a member of the University Council.

Joyce Karreman (j.karreman@utwente.nl)

Communication Science, BMS faculty

Good communicaton is crucial for any relationship, and that is no different regarding the relationship between the University of Twente and the executive board. The university council plays an important roll ensuring this line of communication, with the excellence of the research and teaching conducted at the UT, as well as the wellbeing of its employees and students, at the back of its mind. Being part of this process is a task I take with humility and aware of the weight of the responsibility. As a health psychologist, I am looking forward to bringing my expertise to this position, and I also look forward to providing my small contribution shaping decision making to be as transparent and democratic as possible. 

Jorge Piano Simões
Faculty of Behavior, Management and Social Sciences
T: +31 53489 6704
E: j.pianosimoes@utwente.nl