Urgent question: should UU collaborate with the Ministry of Defence?

In Leiden, a debate erupted earlier this month regarding a new minor in security and resilience. "Security" is taken so literally there that Leiden students can earn 15 credits by completing reservist training. That sounds familiar: should the Netherlands come under attack, Leiden would certainly be able to hold out for a while.

The debate raised a question for me: has defence also become part of the university’s remit now? Until recently, this was a philosophical question, but now it seems urgent and concrete.

In Utrecht, we are even less advanced than Leiden. Debates, dialogues, and lunches to discuss the issue suggest a more preliminary phase, while in my own circle, I notice that conversations tend to focus on whether we should collaborate with the Ministry of Defence at all, rather than on how we should collaborate with them. All very interesting from a philosophical point of view, but in reality, pretty much passé.

In a broader sense, academia has been directly and indirectly linked to the Ministry of Defence for a long time. The university is at the heart of society; a place towards which the Ministry of Defence is also moving.

Consider the innovations in artificial intelligence currently being adopted. Moreover, the Ministry of Defence has long moved beyond mere "bang-bang-poof": sociological issues concerning resilience, military history, and international law are examples of inevitable points of contact between the Ministry of Defence and the university.

Moreover, the question of whether we should align ourselves with the Ministry of Defence obscures a far more important question: under what conditions should we collaborate, and how do we ensure that academic independence is safeguarded and that we do not end up unconditionally fawning and drooling over a 1.15 billion euro bone?

Dialogue about such conditions is not vague; on the contrary. Assistant Professor Lauren Gould discussed the specific dilemmas in a conversation with the Tilburg-based media organisation De Kanttekening: in defence-funded research, there are diverging interests regarding research questions, who is allowed to work on the research, and the presentation of the results.

Other examples to consider include professors employed by the Ministry of Defence, technological collaborations with the defence industry, the use of data research for cyber security, and support for military decision-making. These are examples from Tilburg and Delft, and harbingers of dilemmas that await Utrecht University. Let us be prepared for them.

On Students' Viewpoint, UU students share their views with the rest of the university community. Merlijn is one of the Dutch students invited to write for this space. This column was originally published in Dutch and translated into English by DUB. You can also read the perspectives of staff members on Staff's Viewpoint.