TU Delft Highlights (EN)

Delft University of Technology

TU Delft

Highlights

TU Delft Highlights

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Table of contents Dirk Jan van den Berg

04

Foreword

06

Gandert Van Raemdonck

10

Simone de Jong

14

Maria Santofimia

18

Sabine Roeser and Ibo van de Poel

A good idea alone is not enough

‘Even better than I expected’

Understanding the microstructures of steel at a fundamental level ‘Innovation requires attention to moral values’

22

Merle de Kreuk

Working in the applied part of the University

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26

Sytske de Groot

‘A hobby that got out of hand’

30

Joost de Groot

‘Mathematics are everywhere’

34

Rinske Geerlings

38

Frans van der Helm

42

Luuk van der Wielen

Working on safety and welfare

‘I just really enjoy the work that I do’

Bringing a sustainable society to maturity

46

Vincent Mourik and Kun Zuo

‘Majorana is the new graphene’

51

Vertical cities Asia

New design concepts for an ageing community

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Foreword

Dirk Jan van den Berg

‘It is only through cooperation – between colleagues, faculties, universities, and the public and private sectors – that the results of our research can truly end up where they are meant to be used: in society.’

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I take great pride in presenting this new edition of the TU

engineers, dynamic entrepreneurs and committed officials

Delft Highlights. As you will see, this past period was once

who will shape our future. Our students also feature strongly

again packed with highlights. This is especially encouraging

in this edition. PhD candidates Vincent Mourik and Kun Zuo

at a time when the current climate - the economic climate

provide an interesting glimpse behind the scenes of cutting-

included - gives little cause for celebration. All the more

edge fundamental science. Without mathematics there

reason for us, as a university of technology, to pull out all the

would be no technology, although Lecturer of the Year Joost

stops - because the research we conduct at Delft, in fields

de Groot prefers not to make use of technology at all when

ranging from wastewater purification to care robots, can

teaching mathematics.

help to create a safe, clean and sustainable world. Moreover,

Effective personnel policy, focusing primarily on people’s

our research leads not only to new knowledge, but also

qualities, is another factor that is essential to success in

to practical applications and new enterprise. Allow me to

teaching and research. ‘Freedom to Excel’ is our strategy

emphasize it once again: innovation is an important driver

and, in this context, freedom can also mean spending time

for the economy. A good example is the story of Gandert

at organisations outside academia. Merle de Kreuk, for

Van Raemdonck, who took an idea from his graduation

example, has no regrets at all about the time she spent at a

project and developed it to its full potential. His aerodynamic

regional Water Board, although obviously we - and she - are

solutions for trucks have been acquired by the multinational

pleased that she is back again. Sometimes we need to give

WABCO, which means they are in a position to conquer roads

this policy added impetus, for example through our Delft

all over the world.

Technology Fellowship for top female scientists - although, in

Although the stories we present in this edition are mainly

all fairness, Maria Santofimia would also have made it without

about individuals, the achievements are, of course, never

that added boost.

those of ‘loners’. It is only through cooperation – between

These are all inspiring stories that give us reason to be

colleagues, faculties, universities, and the public and private

optimistic. Despite climate change and the heavy economic

sectors – that the results of our research can truly end up

weather, with so much talent and dedication evident in

where they are meant to be used: in society. No-one can

these Highlights alone, we can look towards the future with

explain this better than Luuk van der Wielen, who has been

confidence.

appointed Distinguished Professor in recognition of his lasting efforts in the field of valorisation.

Underpinning all this, of course, is good teaching, because that is what makes our Delft students into the smart

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Dirk Jan van den Berg President of the Executive Board Delft University of Technology

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Gandert Van Raemdonck

A good idea alone is not enough Together with his brother Hjalmar, Gandert Van Raemdonck developed special side skirts and tail pieces to streamline truck semi-trailers. In 2012, their start-up company, Ephicas, was acquired by the listed WABCO firm. This was an important and deliberate step, according to Van Raemdonck: “My goal is for all trailers to be equipped with fuel-saving aerodynamic aids within a few years. This can’t happen unless we maintain a considerable presence in the transport sector and have a worldwide network, like WABCO”.

There’s no hardship in waiting in the YES!Delft centre for entrepreneurship: with fine coffee from the high-tech espresso machine and a view of the science park that is being developed.

Van Raemdonck apologises: he has been on a conference call with Russia and has to fly out there unexpectedly tomorrow.

Brillant minds Developments concerning the aerodynamic solutions developed by the former Ephicas are clearly proceeding very rapidly. The current Head of Aerodynamics Research and Development at WABCO does not mind.

He has always been fascinated by speed, even as a boy: “I am a racing fanatic.

I love to watch Formula I, and I was a racing cyclist until the age of 19. I consider everything that has to do with speed super-cool. I’m also attracted to the technology that surrounds it, including lightweight materials and aerodynamics”. So he had a great time during his studies in the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering.

Van Raemdonck attended secondary school in Sint-Niklaas in Belgium. A visit from a former student who had gone on to study at Delft inspired him to investigate the possibilities here as well. “I knew I wanted to be an engineer, preferably with a university degree (known in Belgium as a civil engineer).

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At that time, however, the university engineering programmes in Belgium were much too theoretical for me. This was around 13 years ago”. He and his parents attended a special information day for Belgian secondary students at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering.

“We were given an excellent reception, with a separate programme for parents.

They were very impressed. As was I: by the facilities, including the wind tunnels, the Aeroplane Hall and the laboratories.

The educational system was also attractive, with a great deal of projectbased education and the opportunity to take examinations four or five times each year. What was the deciding factor?

I saw a carbon bike in the hall, and the DUT Racing Team had just been founded”.

Once in Delft, I was particularly pleased with the contact I had with lecturers and professors. “People like Michel van Tooren, Adriaan Beukers and Loek Boermans are truly my heroes. Brilliant minds”. After completing his Bachelor’s degree and spending a year building racing cars at Formula Student, he therefore decided to pursue his Master’s degree in Michel van Tooren’s unit. “It was simply because I thought he would be such an interesting guy to learn from”, explains Van Raemdonck. It was also at this time that the idea for the ‘SideWings’ – the wing-shaped wind

‘Delft has been placed on the map as a centre for the aerodynamics of semi-trailers’

deflectors that protect the bottom of the truck – emerged. “I wanted to take my degree in applied aerodynamic design, preferably with something having four wheels – a racing car or passenger car. A company was looking for someone for a project involving truck semi-trailers. That was interesting to me as well; my uncles have a contracting company. In 2006, I developed the ‘SideWings’ in the wind tunnel as one of several solutions. Even after my graduation, however, I wasn’t tired of the topic. I wanted to explore it in even greater depth. So I decided to pursue a PhD”.

Legislation

YES!Delft The road from a good idea to a successful company can often be a long one. Business incubator YES!Delft helps students and staff at TU Delft to bring their knowledge to the market. And it does so successfully, because the vast majority of the 100 companies that it has accommodated since the establishment of YES!Delft in 2005 are still active today. Some start-ups have even grown into companies with dozens of employees and turnovers in the millions. This is good news for the businesses themselves, for the regional economy and for society as a whole. YES!Delft enables inventions to reach the market that may otherwise have gathered dust in the University archives. From waterpowered irrigation pumps for farmers in developing countries (aQysta) to composite structures for the marine industry (MOCS), YES!Delft provides accommodation, coaching, facilities and an extensive network of entrepreneurs.

One of the other solutions was an aerodynamic tail piece or ‘boat tail’. This was tested in practice for five months

by TNT in late 2011. It met with great success: the collapsible EcoTail can generate fuel savings of 6%. The only problem is that European legislation specifies a maximum length for trucks; when the tail piece is unfolded, it is 1.5 metres long. “Yet the EU is aiming to achieve a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020. The ‘SideWings’ and the ‘EcoTail’ together can yield fuel savings of 10%”, explains Van Raemdonck. “So we’ve been in discussion with the EU for years concerning the possibility of amending the regulations. New regulations were published in December 2012, but they extended the length by only half a metre, instead of the 1.5 metres we had hoped.

It was a European compromise”, he sighs.

Nevertheless, he remains positive. “It’s a step in the right direction and it certainly won’t be the last. It’s important to keep the issue on the agenda. We at TU Delft have managed to do this, together with the Dutch government”.

Despite the regulations, Van Raemdonck and his colleagues have had reasonably smooth sailing.

In 2008, they started their own company.

“At Delft, you receive a great deal of encouragement if you want to become an entrepreneur. For example, you can participate in workshops about writing a business plan, and you can rent office

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space at YES!Delft. This makes the step into entrepreneurship seem less daunting. In addition, when you’re young and unattached, you’re also willing to work very hard to realise your vision”. They have won a wide range of national and international awards for young entrepreneurs. According to Van Raemdonck, timing played a role: “Since 2000, sustainable development has been on the agenda everywhere. Furthermore, the margins in the transport sector are low, and they were under further pressure due to rising energy prices”.

There was also a gap in the market.

“Trucks use a great deal of fuel unnecessarily because of the aerodynamic properties of the semi-trailer, but almost no one was paying much attention to that.

So there was a huge amount of room for improvement. Look at the cab and the engine – they are already very well developed. Nevertheless, fleet managers purchase the best tractor unit with the most advanced engine possible, and then hook a sort of rectangular block behind it. All of the profits that they book on the front end are thus lost in the rear. The relatively simple SideWings solution can save as much as 5%, even under the current regulations. This translates into 1.5 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres, in addition to lower CO2 emissions”.

Credibility Nevertheless, a good idea alone is not enough. “There are plenty of visionaries saying that they have an invention that can help you save 10% on fuel. As engineers at TU Delft, however, we had access to the facilities and expertise of the university. Our professors supported us, and they sometimes even went along to presentations. This gave us credibility with the industry, even though we were young”. Van Raemdonck has also made his own contributions to existing knowledge, as flow behaviour around blunt objects continues to raise new questions for research and application. “I consider the aerodynamics of this type of ‘bluff body’ many times more complicated than those involved in an aircraft. It has

everything to do with separated flow and instability. Delft has since been placed on the map as a centre for the aerodynamics of trailers. A symposium held in Delft last year was attended by people from all over the world. We had the aerodynamic chief designers from Volvo, Scania, DAF and Daimler as speakers, and I even gave a presentation myself”. The meeting was organised by the Platform for Aerodynamic Road Transport (PART), which is a partnership of scientists, manufacturers and transport companies in which TU Delft is a participant.

SideWings During the symposium, Van Raemdonck established the first formal contacts with WABCO, after which the developments rapidly gained momentum. In September 2012, WABCO announced the acquisition.

“WABCO is a global technology company

that develops intelligent systems designed to improve the safety and efficiency of commercial vehicles. Our products fit well within this mission. In addition to their efficiency benefits, our SideWings are safer, as they close off the bottom of the vehicle”. He has no regrets about being an employee again, instead of an entrepreneur. “Ephicas was a small team, and you can’t conquer the market with that. Now we have dozens of representatives at home and abroad, instead of just one. I am more a designer and developer than I am a seller.

Moreover, what I’m doing at WABCO now is actually much broader. I either consult on or design everything that the WABCO group does in the area of aerodynamics”.

Looking back, Van Raemdonck is very proud of what he and his team achieved in four years, in part due to TU Delft.

“The Faculty of Aerospace Engineering

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offers a fantastic opportunity to realise ideas, and the facilities and structure are available for building a successful business from nothing”. He is also pleased that his work can contribute to a sustainable society. “I’m not out to save the world.

That sounds so idealistic. Now I can use my corporate social responsibility to contribute while continuing to follow my passion”. He points out the window towards the A13. “Look, there goes one now”. A truck equipped with SideWings drives by as if on command. “Albert Heijn has a distribution centre nearby, and about a dozen of their trucks drive by each day”, he adds, for the sake of honesty.

Coming soon to a highway near you.

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Simone de Jong

‘Even better than I expected’ Simone de Jong studied Arts and Sciences in Maastricht. For many years, she worked as a science information and communications consultant. Last year, she switched to the position of Faculty Secretary in the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. It was a very conscious choice: “I wanted to do much more than I could do in the role of communications consultant. The work that I did was appreciated, but I didn’t feel that I was a part of the decision-making process”.

Science courses ...

I took them during my university preparatory programme, because I thought I might like to pursue a technical degree. But I went abroad for a year first and when I came back, I knew what I wanted: something to do with technology and science, but not a purely technical degree programme. That seemed too narrow for me; it wouldn’t hold my attention. I’m more of a generalist. I decided on the programme in Arts and Sciences at Maastricht, where one of the majors focused on the interaction between science, technology and society.

This appealed to me very much: it was about technology, but we were primarily concerned with observing and analysing.

It thus wasn’t a hardcore technical programme, but it was easier for the science-based people (like me), because we were better in those analytical skills.

Popularisation of science ... became my major. When I was finished, I started working at the university as a science information officer.

When I received an opportunity to enter a postgraduate programme in communications consultancy, I rolled into the communications business. I enjoyed doing this for several years. As an information officer, however, I was

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often only superficially involved with topics, without developing any thorough knowledge. After a few years, I wanted to find something with greater depth.

This led me to Schuttelaar and Partners in The Hague, a consultancy firm focusing on health and sustainability. My duties included writing a study on food risks. I was able to immerse myself in the topic in order to develop an overview of the current state of the science and what we as a society think about it.

Citizen participation... was one of my specialisations during my time at Schuttelaar. For the public to be able to form an opinion about policy, it should be translated into terms to which the public can relate. This is a lot like the popularisation of science, which also involves making difficult subjects accessible. To do this successfully, it is important to understand the subject yourself. The job thus had sufficient depth, but I was hopping from one assignment to another without ever seeing the results of my work in practice.

After six years of experience in the agency, I started reflecting, and I realised that I was best suited to work in a university, largely because of the contentdriven people who work there, as well as the students and the overall dynamics.

‘In my heart, I knew that I ought to be working with scientists’ TEDxDelft

That’s how I ended up at TU Delft...

TED stands for ‘Technology, Entertainment, Design’. The phenomenon originated in the United States, where speakers take a maximum of eighteen minutes to present inspiring ideas during the annual TED meetings. Nowadays, TEDx events are organised around the globe. The ‘x’ indicates an independently organised event, i.e. in the spirit of TED but entirely independent.

In 2011, it was Delft’s turn: Simone de Jong and Rob Speekebrink organised the very first TEDxDelft – with the motto Creating History. It featured twenty speakers ranging from student Bauke Steenhuizen, who called for more poetry in commercial writing, to the Netherlands’ very first astronaut, Lodewijk van de Berg. TEDxDelft attracted a packed auditorium and a standing ovation. It also awakened a hunger for more.

In 2012, the fans got what they wanted with the second TEDxDelft: Never Grow Up. It again featured numerous fascinating ideas, including Boyan Slat’s plan for removing the plastic soup from the world’s oceans and Bas Lansdorp, who wants to launch a manned mission to Mars in 2023. Another TEDxDelft is scheduled for 2013: Do try this at home.

as a communications consultant for the Delft Research Initiative Infrastructures & Mobility. I did not know very much about mobility, but from my very first day I truly enjoyed working at TU Delft.

There is always so much going on here, and I’m fascinated by the processes of the university. For example, I was involved in establishing the Transport Institute, dealing with how to embed something like that within the organisation and how to work with stakeholders outside the university. Regardless of the importance of communication in this process, it is not a decisive factor. As a communications advisor, I was not at the heart of the organisation. For example, the secretary of the transport institute was much closer to the fire. After a while, this started to bother me in this position as well. In my heart, I knew that I ought to be working with scientists, and I started wondering if the communications world was truly the place for me.

A great deal of support ... was provided to me at that time by my supervisor, Evelyne Esveld. Her position as Head of Corporate Communications brings her into contact with many areas of the university. She was therefore very useful in helping me to consider where I might best be able to realise my potential.

She also advised me to take my own orientation tour around the organisation.

I therefore started talking with people in

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Human Resources, Education & Student Affairs, Corporate Policy Support and many other departments. I can highly recommend this to everyone. Most people truly are willing to make time for this, and they even enjoy doing it. Then I saw the vacancy for a Faculty Secretary at IDE. That seemed like a terrific step. It was exactly the type of job that would suit me as a generalist, with significant growth potential – all of this in a fine faculty like IDE. I already knew a number of people in the faculty, some of them from the time that I had helped to organise the TEDxDelft. The ‘D’ in TED stands for Design, and I had already met several industrial designers in this way.

A human faculty ... this is how I have come to know the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.

People play a central role in the design process. Perhaps I should explain it in different terms: design is actually the human component in technology.

Industrial design involves the interaction of the user or users with the product or network of products. The user plays a central role. For example, traditional design academies are much more concerned with the individual style of the designer. For this reason, I think think that IDE attracts a particular type of students and scientists who consider this human aspect interesting – as do I. At the same time, we are obviously a technical university: we train engineers.

Design involves understanding how

people react to products or technology, and what can be done in order to achieve a particular effect. Design is also about looking ahead, however, and it influences the development of new, emerging technologies. Relevance is an important factor in this regard. Design should be socially relevant; otherwise, it does not suit us here at TU Delft.

It’s remarkable ... that design is becoming a scientific discipline in its own right. We here at IDE are world leaders in this regard, and we are aware that we have our own role in this process. Our dean, Ena Voûte, also started not so long ago. Now we are in an interesting phase of development. We are considering where would we like the focus of our faculty to be in the coming years, and how would we like to relate to the rest of the world. Because we are the oldest and broadest design faculty, this type of strategic thinking is necessary, but it is not enough to keep us in first place.

The funny thing is, that I can also see how design plays a role in the organisation itself. For example, whenever we have a strategy meeting, models are built in order to contribute to the discussion and help people to focus their thoughts. I think this is characteristic of IDE.

I feel very much at home ... in my new position. It’s even better than I expected. I like to be arranging things and shifting quickly between tasks at one moment, later returning to quiet reflection

and wrestling with policy. The job offers me many new challenges as well. I have to pore over figures and budgets, and this is something I’ve always secretly liked doing. It was no accident that I included mathematics in my studies.

These administrative processes actually form the greatest contrast to what I had been doing before. I’m now dealing with such systems as Basware, PeopleSoft and Digiforms, and when something goes wrong with them it affects me too.

I didn’t have so much to do with this as an information officer. And I am now a supervisor, so I have to evaluate people.

At Schuttelaar, I was used to supervising trainees and junior consultants, but now I am managing people in positions that I’ve never held myself.

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Education... is another aspect I have more to do with.

We recently compiled a list of the top ten graduates from the past 10 years. It includes truly great stories. One example is Maarten Kamphuis, whose safe competition sword made him the best TU Delft graduate of 2010. He had pulled out all the stops to improve his sword: using a high-speed camera to conduct precise observations of the movements that are made; immersing himself in historical archives to learn how it was done in the Middle Ages, and using ergonomics and test configurations with pigs’ feet. I think that’s fantastic.

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Maria Santofimia

Understanding the microstructures of steel at a fundamental level Last year, Maria Santofimia won a European ERC Starters Grant as well as a Dutch innovation research incentive (vidi). On top of that, she was also awarded a TU Delft Fellowship for female scientists. This has enabled her to set up a sizeable research group for her work on steel microstructures. Winning three grants is a remarkable achievement that must have cost a lot of effort and thought. So what is the secret of her success? “The key to that for me is organizing well and timing everything in advance. For example, I was due to get married in August 2011 and then go on our honeymoon, but that interfered with the deadlines for the grants. So I made sure I had my draft proposals ready by July, way before the deadlines.”

Maria Santofimia Navarro studied Physics in Cordoba, in the Andalusia region of southern Spain. “When I graduated in 2000, I realized that I loved to study, and that I’d like to keep doing it for the rest of my life”. She first embarked on a PhD on CO2 laser, but then applied for and obtained a research grant from the Spanish National Research Council to work at the National Centre for Metallurgical Research in Madrid (CENIM): “Switching from laser to steel was a bit of a risk, but I was attracted by the thought of studying something totally different, and soon got hooked on the subject”, Santofimia says. “The research at the CENIM is cutting edge and my PhD was very broad. I learned a lot about the formation of microstructures in metals, the fundamental stuff.” After defending her thesis at the Complutense University of Madrid, she applied for a position as a postdoc at the Materials innovation institute (M2i) in Delft. M2i is a research partnership between government, industry and knowledge institutes. “I got the job because the reputation of my research group was excellent, and the position was in the same field as my PhD. What must have clinched

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it though, was my enthusiasm when I presented my ideas for the project. Now I’m hiring people myself, I see that that is very important.”

After three years as a post-doc at M2i, Santofimia returned to Spain. She won a prestigious research scholarship under the Ramon y Cajal Programme of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. “That was a huge achievement: it’s a tenure track position and the expectations are high. It was also almost the only way I could return to Spain and pursue a career in academia.

I started work at the new IMDEA institute of materials in Madrid, which at the time was hiring young people from all over the world. It’s a new and exciting development in Spanish research.” Santofimia was now a junior researcher, yet Delft still beckoned.

“At M2i I had experienced what excellent research could really be like. After about six months at IMDEA, I decided to leave and return to M2i as a postdoc. This could be considered a step backwards in my career, but it was one I was happy to take. It did mean, however, that I couldn’t reapply in Spain for a research grant.”

‘I was elated to get all three of them – the ERC, the Vidi and the Fellowship’ TU Delft Technology Fellowship The Delft Technology Fellowship, an initiative aimed at increasing the number of female academics at the university, was launched in 2011. Through the Delft Technology Fellowship, outstanding female academics receive a five-year initial appointment as assistant/associate professor or full professor. They also receive funding to set up their research.

The first ten Fellows have already been appointed, one of them being Maria Santofimia. There is a lot of international talent: only one of the ten women is Dutch. In terms of their different fields they also cover the entire breadth of the University, ranging from social media to mathematical models for neuroscience. The university intends to start a second round of the Fellowship in 2014.

Hat trick M2i was delighted for her to return – and so was Santofimia. “I was the best postdoc they could get”, Santofimia says, “even rather overqualified. But to stay in Delft and work at TU Delft as I now wanted, I had to get my own funding. So I first applied for an ERC Starting Grant in 2010, but I was rejected, though I had enough points to be allowed to reapply the following year.” In 2011, she tried again. She also applied for a Vidi grant, and for the newly established TU Delft Fellowship for female scientists. Getting invited to all three interviews was a good sign, but it also heralded the most difficult time she has experienced so far professionally. “It was rather stressful.

I’m not very good at selling myself”, Santofimia admits. “When you only have five minutes – and one sheet – to discuss your 1.5 million project, as with the ERC, you need to be careful what you say, not to put any doubts you have on the table first thing. I’m a realist, and I tend to talk about failures as well as successes.

In science this is an advantage, but in front of a grant committee, you should avoid talking about difficulties.” Then, in the summer of 2012 she heard the good news. “I was elated to get all three of them – the ERC, the vidi and the Fellowship. One of them would have been enough. Especially the ERC came as a surprise. They made some

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very nice comments about my interview and presentation, but at the time of the interview it felt as though they were really hard on me.”

No alchemy So what is Santofimia going to concentrate on in the coming years? “I focus on metals, especially steel. Steel is used in many applications – pipes transporting gas, cars, ships, etc. They all need steel with different properties: it has to be strong, or ductile or corrosion or crash resistant, or a combination of these. Under the microscope you can observe different crystalline structures or phases. The size, composition and morphology of these structures determine the properties of the steel. They form through a complex process involving different states and treatment steps, such as heating, solidifying and rolling. I study how these structures change throughout the whole process, what is called phase transformations”, Santofimia explains.

“For millennia, steel was produced by trial and error. Different kinds of steel with different properties were produced without knowing what was going on, almost like alchemy. Now there are techniques that allow us to study the structures at the atomic level. And if we understand the physics that determine the formation of the microstructures, we can use this knowledge to create

new steels with exactly the right properties.” Santofimia aims to use atom probe tomography (APT) at Eindhoven University. “APT allows you to observe what is going on at atomic level in 3D. Alloys contain different atoms, and all of them play a role in the formation of the microstructures and the properties. To be able to observe that is very exciting.”

Santofimia specifically studies the phases that form at relatively low temperatures (300 - 400 °C), as these are important for the mechanical properties of steel, such as strength and ductility. “These phases form at what are called non-equilibrium conditions, conditions that are not controlled by normal thermodynamics and that are not yet well known. I study how these phases affect each other.

Usually you form steel during a sequential process; I propose to let phases interact during a non-sequential process. That is a whole new way of thinking”. Her research should lead to new steels, as well as to fundamental knowledge that can be applied to other kinds of metals.

Industry involvement The steel industry is naturally very interested in Santofimia’s work. “The steel industry wants to develop the best steels, but they can’t afford to spend five years studying the fundamentals. The ERC grant is for fundamental research, so there is no industry involvement

there. But my Vidi proposal included the setting up of a user committee, in which TATA Steel, Arcelor, Tenaris and M2i are taking part. I must never ignore the practical applications of what I do.” She is occasionally also involved in contract research. “I sometimes get asked to design treatments to make a certain kind of composition with certain properties.

And when I do that, it’s not by trial and error, because I understand what is happening.”

Santofimia enjoys the work climate in Delft. “I like it that the organization is focussed on you as a person, not just on your results. I try to balance my work and home life and leave every day between five and six, though I still have to work from home most days. I just don’t want to get used to working late in the office.”

Atmosphere is very important to her: “I

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want to do research and enjoy it, and for everybody around me to enjoy it too. If I’m unhappy in my work, I take that home with me.” Halfway through her PhD she even considered switching from research to teaching because of the ambiance.

“There is a lot of stress and competition in academia in Spain. I started doubting it was the right environment for me.”

Now, after years of being a PhD student and a postdoc, Santofimia is supervising her own research assistants. “I like to encourage them to propose their own ideas, but I also try to stop them from struggling with something that is not going anywhere. I also give credit where credit is due. It is wonderful to motivate young people and to make them think for themselves.”

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Sabine Roeser and Ibo van de Poel

‘Innovation requires attention to moral values’ A philosophy research group is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about a university of technology. Nevertheless, such a research group has existed within the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management (TPM) for years. “Ethics is a compulsory part of the instruction in many programmes at TU Delft. We’ve been giving lectures in almost all of the faculties for about 15 years”, says Professor Sabine Roeser. And research has also moved on during that time. “The advantage that we offer is that, in addition to talking about theory, we are able to translate it into its implications for technological development”, states Professor Ibo van de Poel.

At first glance, the careers of Sabine Roeser and Ibo van de Poel exhibit striking parallels. In 2012, they were both appointed Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Professor, a professorship for young, talented scientists. In 2009, they each received a fellowship from the prestigious Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS). Together, they have already won all three grants offered under the NWO Innovational Research Incentives Scheme: Roeser received a Veni and a Vidi grant, and Van de Poel received a Vici. According to Van de Poel, this was pure coincidence. ”Before we came to Delft, our work was quite different.

Our backgrounds are different as well.

I studied the philosophy of technology at Twente”, he recounts. “I went to the art academy in Maastricht, after which I completed Master’s degrees in philosophy and political science, followed by a PhD in the foundations of ethics”, adds Roeser.

There are substantive differences as well.

“We are both working with the topic of ethics and technology. The ways in which we do this are very different, although it may not be very evident to the outside world”, explains Van de Poel. It is time to do something about this.

Emotions “My unique selling point within the ethics of technology is emotion”, offers

Roeser. “I have my own theory about the role of emotion in the formation of moral knowledge. There are two traditional schools in the field of ethics.

The rationalists say that ethics should be based on reason; otherwise, we cannot be objective. In contrast, the sentimentalists say that ethics should be based on subjective emotions. We are actually still accustomed to seeing reason and emotion as opposites, but this contradiction is completely obsolete. Neuropsychological research on people with brain damage has shown that people who have no emotions are also incapable of forming any moral judgement. This notion plays an important role in my theory of ethics. I argue that we can have both: emotions and objectivity. We need emotions in order to form moral judgements. Nevertheless, this does not plunge us into subjectivity.

If that were the case, we would be unable to distinguish between good and evil. The morality of a mass murderer would then be just as acceptable as the morality of Mother Theresa. We feel intuitively that this is not the case”.

Experiment Van de Poel’s research is also based on a new assumption: new technology should be seen as a social experiment.

“We currently attempt to chart the risks of new technologies in advance. In many

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cases, however, we do not yet know exactly how the technology will develop.

So we don’t know exactly what could go wrong, or something entirely different might go wrong in practice. For example, nanoparticles are thought to be toxic or carcinogenic, but the scientific evidence is still undecided. Although new technology can bring many benefits, experimentation is accompanied by risk. In my Vici project, I am investigating the conditions under which we should consider technological experimentation acceptable within society”.

Risk Risk is one of the interfaces between their research. “I use my theory of emotions to analyse risk. Emotions are currently on the black list”, asserts Roeser. “The prevailing notion is that risks are part of the technical aspect and so are best left to the experts. This overlooks the social and moral values that play a role in the process. For example, consider the voluntary basis upon which people are asked whether they wish to undergo a risk. Things like this touch upon autonomy, which people intuitively consider very important. Justice is another example. In most cases, innovations are subjected to cost-benefit analyses, but they usually only consider whether something would be useful to a company

‘We would like to make students aware that technology raises moral questions’ Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Professor In 2012, Sabine Roeser and Ibo van de Poel were appointed as AvL professors. This is a special professorship for highly promising scientists. The AvL title is awarded to scientists in fields in which there is not yet a chair. It allows them to establish a solid position for the field. In other cases, there might be a chair, but it is not vacant. In this respect, TU Delft deviates from the formation principle that specifies a chair with a professor for each field.

Another factor that has played a role within the philosophy research group is the enormous growth that the field has experienced throughout the past decade. “This makes it possible to prevent the loss of talented people, which would make it impossible ever to build a very strong research group.

It is more like the American system, in which anyone can become a professor, at least in theory”, notes Sabine Roeser. Even though it is a full-fledged professor title, Ibo van de Poel also considers it a bit of an honorary title: “Considering everyone who is included the list of AvL professors, it’s something to be quite proud of”. It is important to provide good career perspectives to other talented young scientists as well”, observes Roeser. “It’s a shame when terrific young people receive only temporary contracts. Our scientific talent is an investment in the future of the university”.

or society as a whole, thereby ignoring the distribution of such costs and benefits.

Climate change is a good example of this.

The affluent West is largely responsible for the cause, while the consequences are currently being felt primarily in the poorer countries. They are also less capable of defending themselves against climate change. These are moral issues that fall outside the quantitative methods that are currently used in risk assessment. In order to bring these aspects to light, we should pay more attention to the emotions existing within society. That people feel compassion for victims in other countries could therefore be an important starting point”.

CO2 storage

According to Van de Poel, the upheaval that took place in 2010 concerning the storage of CO2 in Barendrecht illustrates exactly where things are currently going wrong. “Shell said, ‘Research shows that it is safe’, but research can never prove that something is absolutely safe. The people appropriately responded, ‘then prove that nothing can happen’. Nevertheless, this is impossible. Nobody can ever prove that nothing will go wrong. Considering something as an experiment immediately offers another way of talking about it. It makes it possible to discuss the conditions under which people may or may not wish to enter the experiment. In this case, the discussion never took off, and the project fell through because there was absolutely no support for it”. Van de Poel sees autonomy as an important factor.

“People want to have a say about how they organise their own lives and about the dangers to which they are exposed. It would go too far to ask permission from each person individually, as is customary in medical experiments. This would push the balance towards the other extreme.

Democratic control through involvement and participation can offer a solution”.

According to Roeser, emotions were

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marginalised in Barendrecht as well. “The government said that the decision had already been made. I therefore think that the anger people felt was largely due to the feeling that they had not been taken seriously. This is the technocratic trap: technology is allowed to prevail, and the moral aspects (e.g. autonomy) are forgotten. The exact opposite was seen in Groningen. The residents of Groningen proclaimed that they were not ‘the cesspool of the Netherlands’, and the discussion was immediately closed. In this case, emotions were the end of the discussion. This is the other extreme: the populist trap. A discussion should have been started regarding possible ways to accommodate the concerns of the citizens. This would have demonstrated that their emotions were being taken seriously”.

Bankrupt Ethics has been a hot topic in recent years, both within TU Delft and throughout society. This is partly due to the economic crisis. “For a long time, profit maximisation had been the prevailing paradigm. People had thus been indoctrinated that it was a good starting point”, argues Roeser. The banking crisis clearly reflects a lack of emotions. Bankers should have placed themselves in the position of the families to whom they sold mortgages that they would never be able to repay. Instead, they thought only in terms of profits and bonuses”. Van de Poel agrees with her. “The banking crisis reveals the bankruptcy of this approach. It is also good to know which role technology plays in it. For example, the stock market operates largely according to computer programmes into which these same economic values are built. So it’s not just about theory, it’s also about practical tools, such as the algorithms of the share programmes. We need to translate new paradigms into techniques and

applications”. That involves Responsible Innovation and value-conscious design.

The faculty has recently introduced a new department of Values, Technology and Innovation. Philosophers, economists and security experts will jointly examine Responsible Innovation. They will proceed from the assumption that, in the context of innovation, attention should also be paid to moral values and ethical reasons. as well as clearly economic reasons. Van de Poel explains, “Innovation is more than merely technological ability. Within the field of biotechnology, many innovation projects have failed because insufficient attention was paid to moral values. In the end, this is bad for the economy as well. It requires a shift in our thinking, as

well as concrete technologies. And that’s precisely where our added value lies.

Technology plays an important role in how people deal with this. If you design it differently, people will be able to behave differently. This is one of the reasons that TU Delft has a philosophy research group”.

Education is obviously another reason.

“Through the educational process, our research group has been firmly anchored within the organisation for years. We give ethics lectures in nearly every faculty.

We do this in tandem with the scientists, who provide case studies from their own fields and lead the tutorials. This keeps it relevant for students, but it is also important for them to see that the

lecturers are involved”, explains Roeser.

“We would like to make students aware that technology raises moral questions and that they can recognise these issues”, continues Van de Poel. “We teach ethical theories and frameworks with which they can think about moral issues systematically. They should also engage in discussion with one another, as they will soon have to do this within society.

It’s great that Rector Luyben and his predecessor Fokkema have both been tutorial lecturers during our classes. This ensures broad support for ethics within the organisation”.

Contemplative The research conducted by the philosophy research group is more contemplative than it is application-oriented. Nevertheless, Van de Poel does indeed work towards concrete applications. “I see my role in many different ways. One involves raising awareness – showing people other ways of considering risks. I would ultimately like for my research to be relevant for policy, perhaps in the form of recommendations to the EU, which could subsequently be used to arrange future policy in a different manner. The first step is indeed to provide information, to disseminate the new perspective”. Roeser is often present in the public debate on a wide array of topics, ranging from breastfeeding to nuclear energy. She also serves on advisory

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commissions, including COGEM, the scientific advisory body in the area of genetic engineering, as well as Covra-OPERA, the research organisation concerned with nuclear waste. “I recently spoke at an expert meeting within the chemical industry. Many technological sectors are facing an image problem. One reason is that communication about risk has traditionally been seen as a one-way street. My work allows me to demonstrate the importance of entering into dialogue with concerned citizens. One example involves a shift from ‘yes-no’ to ‘under what conditions’. This alone would constitute a major break with the current trend”.

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Merle de Kreuk

Working in the applied part of the University In 2012, the very first Nereda water purification plant began operation in Epe. Merle de Kreuk had been involved in the project since 2000 and played an instrumental role in developing the technology. “In 2012, we really saw our work come to fruition. The official opening by Prince Willem-Alexander (now the Dutch King) was quite an event. Together with Professors Sef Heijnen and Mark van Loosdrecht, I was also nominated for the European Inventor Award in Denmark. All of this happened around the same time. I was walking around with a grin on my face for two whole months.”

Nereda technology Sewage water purification plants use micro-organisms that digest the waste materials. These organisms generally clump together in flakes, that then gradually settle. With Nereda, the bacteria grow in compact granules that settle quickly. This has all kinds of advantages. Not only does it take less time, it is also cheaper because the process uses less energy and fewer chemicals.

Less space is required, because secondary settlement is unnecessary.

The process takes place in aerobic conditions. At other purification plants, separate tanks are required for the aerobic and anaerobic processes. Thanks to the aerobic granules that Nereda uses, these processes are combined: aerobic on the outside of the granule and anaerobic on the inside.

The granules also have other potential benefits. The granular sludge appears to contain a high level of an alginate that is used in industry as a binding agent. Another polymer also has potential for use as a bioplastic. That would be unique: recycling a high-quality product from waste water.

How did you become involved in the project?

I studied environmental hygiene in Wageningen and then started working for IHC Holland, a shipyard for dredging vessels. After around three years, it was time to make a decision: should I take a PhD or continue working in industry?

I eventually came into contact with Professor Mark van Loosdrecht, who was looking for someone to work on research into aerobic granular sludge. My first job as a PhD student was to write a grant application, because there was only two years’ worth of funding. That was in 2000; then we only had proof of the principle: in the lab, we were able to grow bacteria in granules in aerobic conditions. We worked with engineering consultancy DHV to upscale the process. This revealed further practical problems that I then tried to investigate in the laboratory reactor.

I ended up spending years on the brink between science and application.

What kind of problems did you encounter?

The main obstacle in moving from a laboratory set-up to a practical application is the process of upscaling. In a threelitre reactor, everything is possible. You can fill it very quickly and regulate the oxygen levels with great precision. In the real world, a purification plant receives more influent – that is, waste water –

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when it is raining and less when it is dry.

The concentration and composition of the waste substances and the pH value also vary every time. It is a question of translating this practical situation into the technology. I investigated whether the bacteria still grew in granules under these different conditions and continued to purify the water. Sometimes it did not work at all, but thanks to a wide range of different tricks, we did get them to grow in granules again. In 2004, we had the process under control on a pilot scale and by 2005 we were actually ready to set up the first plant.

And yet it still took until 2012…

DHV did build some demo plants in South Africa and Portugal. But Nereda is really a Dutch invention, so everyone was very keen to have the first official practical plant here in the Netherlands. In addition, the water boards have been involved right from the outset and co-funded the research through the STOWA (Foundation for Applied Water Research).

The water boards wanted to be certain that it would work and we could only guarantee it on a pilot scale at that stage. They wanted to know who would bear the financial risk in the event of its unexpected failure and were hoping to establish a government guarantee fund. This all became very political, but I

‘Drinking water automatically becomes waste water; if you don’t treat it, people will become ill’ Career move Occasionally, scientists should take a step outside the institution to acquire new ideas and ensure that they become or remain at the cutting edge in their own field, according to TU Delft’s HR strategy. Merle de Kreuk is in complete agreement.

“After graduating, I spent three years working in industry. It teaches you about efficiency and seeing projects through. It is never possible to delve very deeply into things, because your customer is pushing for results. After a while, that became too superficial for me, but the efficiency and the ability to deal with industry has always proved useful.

At TU Delft, I completed my PhD and then worked as a postdoc on a European grant project. When that came to an end, it was not possible to give me a permanent position.

I found a job as an innovation technologist working for WSHD, the Hollandse Delta water board. I worked there for two and half years until a position became free at CEG; I was still attracted by the academic environment. I also find TU Delft to be a very positive place to work.

Everyone is determined to make a success of their research.

But I never regretted making the move outside of TU Delft. At the water board, I learned all about the decision-making process and how information flows work. You also retain more of a feeling for society if you look outside the confines of academia now and again.

Occasionally venturing outside can even help accelerate your career.

After all, only very few people have the good fortune of being able to stay at the University through a PhD and tenure track.”

was lucky that I did not have to become involved in it. I did secretly wonder why they didn’t have more nerve. Since then, I have worked for a water board myself so I now have a better understanding of their perspective. A water board takes taxation from its residents, so is such a risk in their interest? Being a visionary can end up costing a lot of money. In any case, I think it should be the role of governments to act as a springboard for new technology. The investment ultimately pays for itself in the form of new business and employment.

How did you stay motivated during all that time?

As a researcher, what drove me was the desire to put this interesting technology into practice. It was not something I felt should be kept within the ivory walls of the University. What was really extraordinary was that I was able to continue working on this for so long. As a PhD student, you generally conduct some research and then go and do something else. I was involved in this for nine years, as a PhD student and as a postdoc.

The entire process actually took more than fifteen years, because the very first experiments started in the mid1990s. Nevertheless, that is a relatively short time to bring a completely new technology to market. We were successful because everyone was highly motivated.

I had an analyst (Mario Pronk) who was able to develop my wild ideas and is now studying for a PhD on this subject. And if ever I went to Mark van Loosdrecht with a problem, I always left with ten great new ideas. We maintained close contact with DHV and had an excellent relationship with them. The water boards and the STOWA were also very closely involved.

Above all, valorisation is a joint process, and in this project that was something that worked very effectively.

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Now that it has been completed, what are you doing?

The great advantage of working in the applied part of the University is that you can put your research into practice reasonably quickly. Despite that, there are still all kinds of loose ends left over and if you can solve them you may even be able to develop improvements later. This is the phase we are currently in and it involves looking at things that are more associated with the pure science. For example, I am now examining the underlying process of granular formation. How exactly do granules form, when do granules fall apart, are there any general mechanisms that apply for both anaerobic and aerobic granular formation?

Another subject I am working on is the optimisation of sludge fermentation used to obtain biogas from waste sludge.

How can we accelerate the fermentation process, for example? The hydrolysis – the step in which you cut the big molecules into smaller ones, as it were – is the first step that determines the speed. Strangely, relatively little is known about this, even though we have been fermenting this active sludge for decades.

First Epe, then the world?

Now that the positive results from Epe are known, things are really starting to move. In the Netherlands, plants are being developed in Dinxperlo and in Vroomshoop, but these were already on the drawing board anyway. There is also a lot of interest from other countries. There will be a plant in Poland and a second one in South Africa. Because they are so compact, Nereda plants are highly suited for large cities. Examples could include such areas as Hong Kong or Singapore, where space is at a premium. In such cases, all you need to do is extend a little corner of the site. In other places in the world, there is sometimes no waste water

purification at all, and that makes Nereda technology quite a complicated process.

They may be able to benefit more from a low-tech pond system or an anaerobic plant that also produces biogas.

In the Netherlands, we are so far advanced that we actually see our waste water purification as a raw materials factory. We are now investigating whether it can be energy-neutral and how we can recycle raw materials and nutrients. I do occasionally think that we should perhaps start by developing the rest of the world rather than tinkering here on the margins.

On the other hand, you can often achieve advances in that way from which other countries can then benefit. New, cheaper technologies also make water purification more economically viable for these areas.

What is it that drives you as a scientist?

Waste water purification has real social relevance. In developing countries, for example, people always think of wells for water first, but drinking water automatically becomes waste water. If

you don’t treat it, people will become ill.

If you treat it as efficiently as possible, you can obtain energy and nutrients from it. Personally, I am really driven by the desire to see things being applied, it really gives me a feeling of having contributed something. Of course, we need pure scientists to explain the world, but after ten years of work, I want more than just a nice publication. It is great if your work delivers tangible results such as the plant in Epe.

The official opening with WillemAlexander was a very special occasion. At last, I was able to show my parents, my husband and my children what I had been working on all those years. And then you see the reactors and the water bubbling through them: it was so wonderful. You can even see them when driving on the A50. ‘They are my reactors’, is what I think when I see them. Of course they are not. It is something all of us achieved together. Everyone played a crucial role.

Ambassador for the sciences Merle de Kreuk gives talks at secondary schools and she believes that more women in technology should do that. “I talk to girls about their study choices as they reach the end of secondary education.

I show them that technology does not have to be something dirty or masculine, because they often have quite a weird impression of it. I explain to them that I do not regulate the pumps myself, but that I actually do something indirectly to cure cholera and reduce infant mortality. Girls have a basic insecurity about arithmetic and mathematics, which starts as early as primary school. Even I went to study at Wageningen because I thought I was not capable of doing the maths required at Delft. All of this is a real shame, because it means there is a lot of potential lost to science.

In every profession, you need men and women in order to advance as far as possible. Not because women have characteristics that men

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cannot have, but because you want to have as balanced a team as possible.

That actually also applies to the organisation as well. Sometimes it could do with a little nudge, if it does not seem to be happening of its own accord. At the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences (CEG), there are a lot of women students and PhD candidates, but after that it seems to stagnate a little. You could do something to encourage things by appointing women as professors, for example, but then you run the risk of people thinking: She is only there because she is a woman. Actually, the reasoning should be: She has aptitude and she is also a woman, which is excellent, because we need more of them. It’s a subtle difference. You need to be careful with incentives and provide a proper explanation that people are primarily being appointed on the basis of their aptitude and be able to prove that.”

Sytske de Groot

‘A hobby that got out of hand’ In 2012, Sytske de Groot won a bronze medal in the Olympic Games rowing in the Women’s Eight. Together with fellow TU Delft alumna Chantal Achterberg, she has been rowing in the Delft Student Rowing club Proteus-Eretes since 2004. After the Games, they were both made honorary members of the club. “The committee telephoned us with the excuse that there was something they wanted to discuss with us. It turned out to be an amazing party where lots of people came to tell us why we should be made honorary members.” Now that all the celebrations and media coverage are over, she’s studying hard once more. “After all, it won’t be long before I need to start looking for a job.”

I started rowing when I came to the university. I wanted to become a member of a sports association mainly as a way of making friends. At the start, I was not particularly ambitious. That wasn’t a problem: you can row at any level. While having fun, I discovered that I was actually good at it. Starting to row competitively happened automatically, beginning with the first-year Eights. I always rowed with Chantal Achterberg. We also took part in the ergometer (indoor rowing machine) competitions and both excelled at that.

If you perform well in a competition, you get invited to the next event. Selections take place at these events, for rowing club competitions and then later for the Dutch championships. You either drop out, or you get through and are then invited to the next selection opportunity. Chantal and I both got through and eventually ended up in the final eight.

Training six times a week can be easily combined with studying.

Ten, eleven or even twelve times was also not too much of a problem. At least, providing it was in Delft, because then I could row in the mornings and evenings and study in-between. It became more difficult when I had to train in Amsterdam with the Dutch squad, because it was not possible to travel backwards and

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forwards between training. I guess you have to make a choice in the end.

I continued to study for the first two years in Amsterdam. I still had a lot of subjects to complete; I would study the course materials myself and then take the examinations. But in the last few years, even that proved impossible. We had so many training camps abroad that we were not even in the country for half of the time. In any case, the training became increasingly intensive and I was simply too tired at the end of the day.

At first that bothered me. But then I thought: right now I have the opportunity to take part in the Games so I should put everything into achieving that. It was then that I made the decision to take a break from studying. I decided to do everything I could to row as well as possible and to resume my studies after the Games. It was the right decision, because from then on I had a clear plan.

Otherwise I would have been left feeling that I was not doing the right thing, because I was unable to devote enough time to studying. Now I can study hard again, and that was all part of the plan.

The selection process proved to be a really exciting time. I had all the right paperwork, because I had been in the World Championship squad

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‘I am enjoying the opportunity to use my brain again’ Top-level sport at TU Delft “Rowing is the perfect student sport”, argues Sytske de Groot. “it is also a club sport: in competitions, you wear the colours of your club.

Unless you are competing for the Netherlands, of course. The University has close links with rowing. TU Delft sponsors the rowing clubs. You can use the Sport & Culture sports centre for power training and ergometer training, which is also important. Without TU Delft, the rowers in Delft would not be so good.” Although there were no special schemes for students who are world-class athletes until very recently, she is positive about the possibilities for combining sport at a top level with studying.

“The lecturers are very helpful. You get some great responses from them and they are tolerant if you want to hand in something later. I have heard that the situation can be different at other universities.

Sometimes I was allowed to take an examination a week later because I had to attend a training camp. Ultimately, it is your own responsibility: you need to have the discipline required in order to study.”

She believes that things will be easier for future generations. “There is now a TU Delft sponsorship programme for top-class athletes, which I think is a great initiative.

There will also be a special house of residence where top-class athletes can live together. A special top-class sport coordinator will be on hand to supervise the athletes.” The University will also benefit from this: “Sport is a great way to put TU Delft on the map.” That is a real win-win situation.

every year. But you need to continue to perform well. Everything is tested and measured right up to the end, and new rankings are continually being compiled.

It was one continuous competition. In April, we were all called to the coach and told that we could be part of the team.

The funny thing is: during the selection you hope that you are the best in the team, but later you would prefer to be the worst, because that means that the team as a whole is better. That encourages you to think flexibly. I am also much more able to cope with stress now. I don’t think I will ever again experience that kind of tension.

It was great that the Games were in London. The British are just mad about rowing, so there were enormous grandstands and crowds of spectators. The fact that it was so close meant that lots of Dutch spectators were also able to come.

Another advantage is that you are used to the climate and do not have to deal with any jetlag.

Of course it’s always great to be selected, wherever in the world it may be.

In London we had to always wear our Olympic kit. People were queuing up to ask for photographs and autographs.

During the rowing tournament in the first week, we were living in a little world of our own. In the second week, we were able to watch lots of other Dutch athletes. But we had not seen any Dutch newspapers or TV news reports and so we had no idea how important people were finding it all in the Netherlands.

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Back in the Netherlands a kind of closing ceremony was organised in Den Bosch. You were allowed to invite three people. That was difficult, because my parents, brother and boyfriend already made four. ‘It must be in a really small hall’, I thought. Not a bit of it. There were some 12,000 people waiting to see our homecoming. Quite amazing.

Certain individual athletes, such as Epke Zonderland, have become real national heroes: everyone wants something from them. We only had a bronze medal and in a team sport at that. So I can walk down the street without being recognised. But if you think about it, a team medal is actually something quite extraordinary. All eight of you need to be in top form. That is a challenge, because everyone’s body is different. One person may be capable of slightly more than another, may be less prone to injury. But, on the day, all eight of you need to perform together. That is not easy to achieve.

A special bond developed between us. I’ve been rowing with most of the team for four years now.

It was an extremely intense period. You train like mad and spend a lot of time away from home. You all have difficult times and it is impossible to hide these from each other. Everyone looks after everyone else, because what you do matters to them and vice-versa. You all help each other a lot. If someone is exhausted they may be irritable, but you make allowances for that. The whole experience was amazing. I realised that it was something quite special to be so involved with each other and know everything about each other. I’m sure

we’ll keep in touch, even though we’re now all doing different things.

I don’t row now as often as I did. Last winter I did a lot of skating and I also enjoy running.

After a period as a top athlete, it is not healthy suddenly to stop exercising, but sport is no longer the most important thing in my life. Nevertheless, I still enjoy challenges. When I am running, I occasionally start to wonder whether I should take part in competitions. That’s why I am now training with a team for the Roparun, a relay race to raise money for people with cancer. It is great to support a cause like this when doing sport, because otherwise it can feel like you are running round in circles for no reason.

Rowing will not make you rich: it is not like cycling, for example. It’s more a hobby that got out of hand than a way of earning a living. But it is extremely challenging, both in terms of your physical and motor

skills and you are always testing yourself to the limit. At the moment, I am enjoying the opportunity to use my brain again.

That’s more satisfying in the end, I think, especially if you have to do it for years, which is why it was so important for me to continue studying alongside my sport.

Will I try for Rio in 2016? It was such a great experience, I would love to do it again. But it was also a sacrifice to which

you must devote your entire life. I am now quite happy to be doing other things.

And I don’t have to decide right away, I can wait until after I graduate. But no one will ever take this medal away from me.

Bizarrely, everyone I show it to actually wants to bite it. It already has teeth marks in it.

Passing shipsDat ik Maritieme Techniek “The fact that I am studying Marine Engineering is pure coincidence: it has nothing to do with rowing. When I started rowing, I was studying Industrial Design Engineering, but I switched programmes”, explains Sytske de Groot.

After the Games, she did an internship at Deltares: “I worked on a study on the subject of passing ships in ports. For example, what forces are exerted on the mooring ropes when a ship passes? The geometry of the harbour plays a role in this. We used models to create a variety of different types of harbours and examined the effect of the different shapes of harbour on the ships passing.”

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She is now working on her graduation project for her Master’s programme in Hydromechanics. “At Allseas, I am conducting research into the power of waves on structures installed on the seabed, such as the foundations for underwater pipelines. They are metal plates hoisted into the sea using cranes. Very little is known about the interaction between these plates and the waves. I am currently still in the process of setting up this study. You can use computational fluid dynamics to gain some idea of what is going on. My plan is to combine this with measurements from the test models.”

She aims to graduate towards the end of 2013.

Joost de Groot

Mathematicians are everywhere As a little boy, Joost de Groot wanted to be a firefighter, but in secondary school, he saw the light. His future lay in mathematics. “In secondary school, I was already tutoring in mathematics, and I’ve known that I wanted to be a teacher since I was sixteen. It’s nice to be able to do that at a university, but otherwise, I would have been teaching in secondary school.” Students at TU Delft are very happy with his career choice. In 2012, they chose Joost de Groot as the Best Lecturer of TU Delft.

The email for the appointment has sunk to the bottom under the stream of messages that Joost de Groot receives each day, but once he is seated at the table, he devotes his full time and attention to the conversation. This is undoubtedly one of the qualities that make him so popular with his students. He is somewhat cautious, however, when asked about the secrets to his success. “Well, I don’t see any other teachers in action, so it’s hard to say what I would do differently. According to my students, I’m very excited about my profession. I would like to transfer this enthusiasm; true understanding can come later”, he replies. “I always try to empathise with what students do and do not know, but that doesn’t mean that my colleagues don’t do this as well. I might be a bit extreme in this regard. I teach mostly first-year students. Fortunately, I’m quite well aware of their level, because I do a good bit of outreach work in secondary schools.”

One incident from his own student days has always remained with him: “A teacher placed a very difficult proposition on the overhead projector. Even before I had the chance to read it, it was taken away, and the proof appeared – all seven pages.

I knew even then that this was not the way to teach.” What is the way to teach?

“In mathematics, there is structure;

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you’re working towards something. In most cases, the details are difficult and contained within complex reasoning.

When I read mathematics myself, I don’t understand it right away – only at the end.

I therefore make clear in advance where we are heading, why we are doing it”, he explains. De Groot prefers to work with examples, rather than with propositions and lengthy proofs. “For most students, it’s not useful to put the proof for a proposition on the board. You don’t ask for such proofs in exams either; if you did, no one would ever pass. Once in a while, you do have to write one – that’s just part of mathematics – but I select them very deliberately.”

Social happening De Groot considers interaction in the classroom very important. “Students come to lectures primarily to soak up information, but it shouldn’t be a one-way street. I hold their attention by asking them a lot of questions. A joke every now and again doesn’t hurt either”, he smiles.

“That works pretty well, although I do have some days when I think, ‘that was really boring’, but no one in the room has noticed anything of the sort.” A lecture should also be a social event: “I always make time for a chat before class and during the break. Lectures are a meeting place for students themselves, but also for us as teachers. At such times, students

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‘For most students, it’s not useful to put the proof for a proposition on the board’ ask questions that help me to understand what wasn’t clear and what I might need to explain again.”

He can still recall his first time in front of a lecture hall. “I was a bit nervous, and I asked a colleague for advice. He told me ‘Wear a suit and have them call you Sir.’ I almost never wear suits, and I felt too young to be called Sir. So I came in jeans, and I introduced myself as De Groot.

During the break, the students were already calling me Joost, and they’ve been doing that ever since.”

Geocaching

Ode to chalk Despite all of the technology at TU Delft, De Groot still considers a blackboard and chalk the best teaching tool. He therefore wants nothing to do with modern whiteboards and markers. “People argue that chalk boards are oldfashioned and unhealthy. I’ve never met a teacher who has gotten sick from a chalk board. Whiteboard markers are environmentally unfriendly plastic, the ink is chemical and it gets you dirty – at least if the markers aren’t empty, which they often are. Students actually like it when something is written calmly on the board.” He does see a future for digital boards, albeit in the long term. “The digiboards that are being used today are too small and slow to respond. You can save things, and that’s convenient. But we shouldn’t be too quick to become dependent upon such things. A piece of chalk always works – even the smallest stub.”

De Groot is now ready for a break as well ... and coffee. “This weekend, I cycled the Amstel Gold Race. I’m still recovering”, he confesses. The 250 kilometres of this ‘tour’ are exceptional for him, even though the 60-kilometre ride from his home to the university does not bother him at all. “Between March and September, I try to go to Delft by bike at least once a week.” Cycling is one of his hobbies, as is geocaching. Geocaching? “It’s a kind of treasure hunt using GPS. Treasures are hidden all over the world. In most cases, it’s a tube with a logbook in it. If you find one, you put your name in it, and you log your find on the internet.” He does his treasure hunting with his 14-year-old twin sons. He also has two daughters, aged 12 and 16. Even though all four of his children do quite well in mathematics, none of them currently plans to pursue a career in this field. Unlike them, De Groot knew early on that he wanted to be a mathematics teacher. “There’s a nice story behind that”, he grins. “In my first year in secondary school, the school psychologist came around to my class.

We were put in a circle and asked about our favourite subjects. Everyone said gym or handicraft. I had the last turn, and I said mathematics. ‘Of course! That’s also a possibility’, replied the psychologist.”

Nevertheless, De Groot initially started a programme in physics. He thought that mathematics would be too boring.

The opposite was true. “In the physics programme, I particularly admired the

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mathematics lecturers. I thought, ‘Wow! They’re teaching at the university!’ I didn’t think about the physics lecturers like that at all. After 11 weeks, I changed my major.”

Context overboard Since that time, mathematics has never bored him. What’s so special about it? “Mathematics is about structure; it’ about logic. It’s a bit like a puzzle; it’s a challenge to arrive at something.

Mathematics is also context-independent.

In physics, you talk about metres per second, joules, forces. In mathematics, you throw all of that overboard, and it suddenly becomes much more widely applicable. To me, that’s really beautiful”, explains De Groot. You can use it in a wide variety of disciplines, as he always emphasises during his outreach sessions.

“Mathematicians are everywhere. In finance, in psychology, in logistics; you name it. They are working in places where you’d least expect it. A mathematician used to work at Hennes & Mauritz. He figured out how much of a certain fashion line was needed in various cities, given local differences in taste.”

After graduating cum laude, he earned a doctorate in topology. “It’s a beautiful field, but it’s so abstract that you can hardly explain what it is”, observes De Groot. “The standard example is that a coffee cup is geometrically the same as an inner tube of a bicycle. If the cup was made of rubber, you would be able to deform it into an inner tube. They are both objects with one hole.” Nevertheless, he chose to become a full-time teacher.

“What I did was so specialised that only about ten people in the world were doing anything with it. For me, that was too far removed from reality, so I plunged into education.”

Entrepreneurial students In addition to teaching at TU Delft, he also taught at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Is there such a thing as a typical Delft student? “The VU is a Christian institution. Faith continues to be a topic of discussion there, but

not in Delft. If you look at mathematics education, the greatest differences are between programmes. Mathematics students are obviously very committed; you can impart a great deal of content to them. Students of industrial design and architecture are more interested in the creative process, and they need mathematics on another level.” One typical characteristic that he does attribute to Delft students is their enterprising attitude. They do many things alongside their studies. “I’m an honorary member of ‘Christiaan Huygens’, the student society in our faculty. In addition to lunchtime lectures and book sales, it organises study trips. These trips combine culture and fun with visits to companies and universities.

On a trip to Denmark, we visited the IT department of Lego and attended a mathematics lecture at the University of Copenhagen.” De Groot loves to go along on these trips, even though it does require a concession: “For such trips, I do wear a suit. If it’s really necessary, I go along with it. Soon we will be going to Korea and Japan for three weeks. Let’s see if I can still find my suit.”

Confidential Advisor Suit or no suit, De Groot is a man of many hats. For years, he was heavily engaged with educational reform. “I worked with groups to consider the use of laptops in education and to develop interactive tests that students could use to prepare for exams. That sort of thing was still in its infancy at that time.” In addition to being a lecturer and doing outreach work on secondary schools, he is currently

a member of the Board of Examiners.

As undergraduate coordinator, he also advises students on substantive issues, including electives and minors. Students always find him ready to listen. “I’m kind of an informal confidential advisor; that sort of evolved. Students tell me what they think is not going well in other subjects. They also come to me with personal problems and sometimes even psychological problems, which can be quite intense. Whenever possible, I try to refer them to the student psychologist or other appropriate authority, but that’s not always what they want. I can’t just send them away”, continues De Groot.

This willingness to always make time, whether for a cup of coffee at the

student society or an in-depth personal conversation, is also the basis for his nomination as Teacher of the Year.

He considers it an honour that he was actually chosen. “I really did not expect it”, he says modestly. Nevertheless, there is a small drawback. “People have been asking me to do anything and everything since I was chosen as Teacher of the Year. Fortunately, I sometimes truly can’t, because I have to teach.” Even now, his schedule is waiting with lectures, advisory conferences and exam preparations. “Are we done? That wasn’t too bad”, he sighs, as if he had just finished a difficult exam.

Outreach Joost de Groot is very active with outreach. Open Days for prospective students are one example. “I give talks about the programme and develop a mini-lecture together with my colleague.” Other activities include Active Mathematics (Wiskunde Actief), a course for preuniversity students. “Students come to Delft for three afternoons in order to explore a mathematical topic. Last year, it was ‘fast sliding boards’. This year, it was about the history of pi – ‘Life of Pi’, so to say”

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For the real mathematical whizzes in pre-university education, there is Junior TU Delft, which is part of the TU Delft Honours Programme.

Participants in this year’s project examine coding theory. “People read over typos and correct them in their heads. Coding theory is about how we can do this with digital information, using error-correcting codes.”

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Rinske Geerlings

Working on safety and welfare Rinske Geerlings has lived in Australia for years, where she runs ‘Business as Usual’, her business continuity and disaster management company. Although she still regularly visits Delft, being selected as Alumnus of the Year came as a complete surprise. “I had no idea I’d been nominated: I didn’t even know the prize existed”. That’s hardly surprising, because she succeeds Arnoud Greidanus, who was the first-ever Alumnus of the Year in 2011.

Although at the time, Geerlings couldn’t decide between Architecture and Industrial Design Engineering, she never regretted her ultimate choice.

On the contrary. “I got through the draw procedure for Industrial Design Engineering, so I thought I would try it for a year. It didn’t take long for me to realise that IDE was just perfect for me. It involves so many different aspects: the creative side of design, but also technology, economics and communication. I really like being able to do a wide variety of different things.” A career in pure design was not for her. “I already knew that I was not one of those rare designers who would truly make it.” Geerlings’ graduation project, which she passed cum laude, actually involved communication: “I conducted market research on the introduction of lampposts and electricity pylons made of lightweight plastic.”

She did the project in Sydney, because she hates standing still: “Bill Green, a professor in IDE, was willing to help me make contacts. Within three weeks I already had a project and was in Australia.” Having arrived there, she never wanted to leave, so she looked into opportunities for returning after her graduation. “I worked as a consultant in IT management for PinkRoccade during my studies. I was able to go and work in Sydney for them. There was a huge

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demand for experts in IT management, so that helped me secure a visa. I also enjoyed being able to take a look inside lots of different companies as a consultant.”

Disaster plan One of those companies was the Rabobank, who were very keen to have her. Geerlings joined them, working on continuity planning. “In Australia, banks are compelled by law to have a good disaster plan, otherwise the whole economy is threatened if something happens. That is what I set up for the Rabobank.” To achieve this, she examined the various ‘what if’ scenarios.

“What do you do if your IT system no longer works or if three-quarters of your staff are ill? How can you ensure you can continue your work? I asked these types of questions and put all the answers together in a plan.” Her design background proved highly useful in this.

“No one will read a plan that contains hundreds of pages, let alone keep it upto-date. I designed some user-friendly checklists and other tools.” These proved so popular that she was asked to look into compliance with other regulations, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for companies listed on the American stock exchange.

“Listed companies have to abide by all sorts of conditions, including issuing reports and conducting audits, etc. It is

‘What do you do if your IT system no longer works or if three-quarters of your staff are ill?’

Empowerment The judging panel that selected Rinske Geerlings as Alumnus of the Year was also impressed by the work she does for women.

Geerlings encourages women to go into business, in her own country and in developing countries. She does this as an active member of BPW – Business and Professional Women – a global women’s network.

BPW strives to achieve better working and economic conditions for women. This can be achieved by creating opportunities for women in developing countries, but also by coaching young businesswomen in developed countries. The idea of female empowerment plays an important role in this. BPW tries to lobby local, national and international governments on legislation and policy that has an impact on women and their families and, by extension, on economic development and society as a whole.

“In my work, I notice that the decision-makers in business are often still men who make deals on the golf course. They do this more out of habit than any deep-rooted conviction”, says Geerlings. “Many men are very much in favour of an equal future for their own wives and daughters and we need their contribution to achieve that. This is why within BPW I encourage women to work together with men much more.”

In 2010, Geerlings was named Australian Business Woman of the Year 2010-2013 by BPW.

usually not part of the day-to-day work and staff tend to think that they have better things to do with their time. I tried to think of how it could be made as simple as possible, using practical templates and charts to complete. And I organised workshops to teach people how to work with them.”

Expertise It was actually her boyfriend who encouraged her to set up her own company. “With all these tsunamis and earthquakes, everyone will soon need a disaster plan, was his argument”, explains Geerlings. He was proved right. She took the plunge and spent six months developing training courses and other materials and found a partner to market her courses. “I taught people to compile their own disaster plan. After just a few months, I had already trained dozens of people.” Satisfied customers resulted in some major contracts. “For a while, I was worried that I would not get a single customer. After all, I had taught them how to do it themselves. The opposite turned out to be the case. They came back to me for my expertise.” She is now an internationally recognised expert and very much in demand as a conference speaker.

Business is booming. So much so that she can now concentrate on what she enjoys.

“I am someone who needs a lot of social contacts. Training courses and seminars are very much my thing. If the job ever involves writing too many procedures, I have other people I can delegate that to.”

Geerlings is a successful businesswoman, with an eye for the impact of what she does on society as a whole. “If a hotel with a thousand guests is on fire, all these people will be on the street in their pyjamas and no one will know where to go. You need to care for their

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safety and welfare. That is the human aspect of it. Continuity planning is also about sustainability. As a company, you need to be able to continue your core activities at all times, because an interruption of a few days or weeks can be enough to close down your business.

For example, if a product is temporarily unavailable, consumers will quickly switch to something else.” She is now securing contracts from all over the world. Is every country different? “The problems are different. For example, in Africa, you need to take account of such things as civil war, which is not so high on the list of risks in Sydney”, she explains. “I usually work in East Africa, where it is relatively safe, but the infrastructure is very poor.

Electricity and telephony, for example.

You don’t have a long list of alternative telecom providers to choose from. This means you need to find other solutions.

The particular sector of industry also plays a role, often even more than the location.

Nevertheless, a little local expertise always comes in useful. But the structure stays the same, the type of questions you ask and how you approach things.”

Resilience In her job, she still uses the design process she learned in IDE: “That process of brainstorming ideas and then developing the best was something I really liked. It was very structured: you always had to give a reasoned argument for making certain choices. I still apply that approach now. The results of my work may be creative, but they also need to be functional and it must be possible to use them intuitively in a disaster situation.”

Another thing she learned in Delft was to have a lot of nerve. “You spend seven years working with people cleverer than

you and with lecturers who have seen everything before. The level is extremely high and people are not always gentle in pointing out your errors. That helps you to develop resilience. Since then, I have never shied away from taking on a job or having my say about something.” And: “I have a lot of dealings with men in my work since they are often the decision-makers.

That is something I am not afraid of at all: seven years at Delft taught me that.”

Her Dutch directness makes her stand out in Australia “People here would rather avoid conflict if possible. It is not that I enjoy conflict, but I will not stand for nonsense or hypocrisy. Having the nerve to stand up and express your opinion is not customary here. But I have noticed that it is valued and that has helped me in my business.” What she herself appreciates in Australia is the business

hierarchy. “It is easier to make decisions.

What the boss says is what matters. This means that things happen much faster. In the Netherlands, it often takes two years of discussion to make any progress.”

Down under What else does she like about life down under? “Here, people work to live: they’re not workaholics. Having my own company, I do have a tendency to work a lot, but if I was in the Netherlands, I would probably have become a terrible nerd spending the whole day indoors at the computer.

This country forces you to go outside. I live by the coast, and spend time in the water every day. When I return home from working abroad, I am immediately in the middle of nature. Plus, there is the climate. In the Netherlands, it is almost impossible to arrange a meeting outdoors,

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but here you can do it almost always.”

Alongside swimming, singing is another way in which she relaxes. “Work is great, but you need to compensate for always using the left-hand side of your brain.

I do that by singing jazz. I have been organising jam sessions in Sydney for years and if I can ever perform, I jump at the chance. It’s usually in Sydney, but sometimes in Africa too.”

She travels across the world for her business. When the news reached her of her selection as Alumnus of the Year, she happened to be on holiday. “I was walking in Istanbul with my boyfriend looking at fishing boats and suddenly started receiving messages from Sicco Santema. He had secretly nominated me.”

Professor Sicco Santema had been her graduation supervisor at Industrial Design Engineering. She still keeps in regular contact with him and occasionally visits Delft to give guest lectures. “One of his subjects is supply chain management.

This is all about how chains of producers are connected to each other. It has a clear link with my work. If just one part of the chain is missing, the rest of it is disrupted.

Think of the tsunami in Japan. It affected almost the whole world, especially within the automobile industry.” So the prize-money she has at her disposal as Alumnus of the Year will be spent wisely.

“We plan to create a game that simulates the destruction caused within a supply chain by a disaster. We will get students to develop it.” Geerlings is extremely proud to have been chosen. “It was such a shame that I could not attend the awards ceremony, but it worked perfectly via Skype. I hope to be able to attend an alumni activity in person very soon.”

Frans van der Helm

‘I just really enjoy the work that I do’ Frans van der Helm is Professor of Bio-mechanics and Bio-robotics. In 2012, he received the Simon Stevin Meester prize, the most important prize for technical-scientific research in the Netherlands. Like the STW Technology Foundation, Van der Helm is committed to realising knowledge transfer between the applied sciences and users. “Whatever we develop must ultimately reach society through industry.”

Control lies at the heart of the work of Frans van der Helm and his department – controlling people and equipment.

Ensuring that people can operate equipment in an optimum fashion requires knowledge of how control takes place in the human body itself. “We’ve come a long way in this regard”, he tells us. “Our department has a unique background; we combine control engineering with physiological systems.” The use of diagnostic tools is a special feature.

“They exert a certain force on the joint of a patient, who must respond with a strength or position task. This allows us to take a precise measurement of how people control their arms or other body parts”, he explains. As in the case of many processes in the body, this happens with the aid of feedback systems.

“Muscle spools and tendon organs send feedback to the central nervous system with regard to the position, speed and strength of the muscle. These are the three most important feedback paths relating to movement. We are the only research group that is able to distinguish them.” This knowledge will ultimately benefit patients who are unable to control their movements effectively.

Examples include people with disorders including Parkinson’s disease, cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis. The STW research programme NeuroSIPE, which is led by Van der Helm, is investigating

new methods of establishing diagnoses and monitoring diseases of the nervous system.

EEG Van der Helm is also collaborating with Professor Gert Kwakkel of the VU Medical centre to develop a new method of making precise registrations of brain activity in place and time. “We are doing this in the same way”, explains Van der Helm. “We exert force and observe how people react to this. For this purpose we use high-density EEG with 256 electrodes.

You could compare it to the localisation of earthquakes. We take measurements everywhere and calculate back to find the source of the signal.” Although this is not a new method, its degree of precision in time and place is new. Van der Helm would like to reduce this from the current half centimetre to two millimetres, with one measurement per millisecond. The EEG method is also expected to provide results quickly. “We are aiming to be able to perform the calculations within a few minutes. In clinical practice, it’s important to know what is wrong with a patient as quickly as possible.” In 2011, Van der Helm and Kwakkel received an Advanced Grant of € 3.5 million from the European Research Council (ERC) for this study.

In addition to generating fundamental knowledge, the EEG study is focusing on

a specific group: people who have had a stroke. “Nerve paths that run through the damaged part of the brain are destroyed and nerve cells degenerate. If we know which paths are still functioning and which connections with other parts of the brain remain, we can develop a better prognosis regarding the chances of recovery.” Once the damaged portion has recovered, the patient must re-learn movements through repetition. If this does not take place, the other parts of the brain – and in many cases, other muscle groups – will take over. This is an essential difference for the rehabilitation process.

“Compensation by other parts of the brain requires looser commands, so that people can discover for themselves what works best for them”, explains Van der Helm. In his opinion, therapy focused on recovery is often pursued for too long. “If it doesn’t happen after a few weeks, it’s not going to happen. If we are able to support this with measurements, doctors will be able to take a decision to adjust the treatment sooner.”

Haptic feedback The medical sector is not the only one to be interested in his work. Van der Helm and his team are also collaborating with industrial partners, including Nissan. The auto manufacturer is the first to apply ‘steer-by-wire’. This involves the car being controlled electronically rather than

‘If I had five times as long, I would be doing five times as many projects’ TU Delft Robotics Institute In 2013, all of the research on robotics at TU Delft was bundled into one institute: the TU Delft Robotics Institute, led by scientific director Prof. Robert Babuska. The institute focuses on three branches of robotics: • Swarm Robotics (e.g. robotic fish for seismic risk assessment; small planes) • Work Robots (e.g. industrial grasping arms) • Robots that interact with humans (e.g. care robots)

Minor in Robotics Martijn Wisse is the coordinator of the interdisciplinary minor programme in robotics, which brings together expertise from four faculties. Participants in the minor take courses in other faculties, thus learning to speak each other’s language. These courses are followed by joint projects.

“Wonderful things are emerging from this programme”, observes Frans van der Helm. “The healthcare robot EVA was developed in six weeks by one of these student groups. It is now the state-of-the-art for healthcare robots, as nothing like it existed before. The robots that had been developed were much too complex and too expensive. The trick is to create a care-providing robot for € 10,000.”

Completely in keeping with the topic, the new institute has no physical location on campus. It is a virtual institute. This also applies to the other new TU Delft Institutes: Climate, Process Technology, Transport and Wind Energy.

through a direct, mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the wheels of the car. Feedback is provided through the steering wheel, so that the driver feels what the car is doing. This is known as haptic feedback: haptic has to do with the sense of touch. “For example, it is possible to remove the countervailing power to the wheels when driving around a curve. The car then turns neatly into the corner, but you still have the feeling that you are doing it yourself. This makes for very comfortable driving, and it requires much less attention”, observes Van der Helm. The technology can also help drivers with parallel parking, staying in their lanes and avoiding obstacles.

“Suppose there is a large stone in the road. The system helps you to steer around it, while you think that you have done it yourself. Because you do not realise that the car took over temporarily, you do not panic, and you retain control over the wheel.” Van der Helm has been working with Nissan for twelve years, to his great satisfaction. “Nissan sees the university as an explorer, as an entity in search of principles. That is exactly what it should be. Our work is relatively fundamental; they build a car around it.”

H Haptics The control of remote devices – telemanipulation – should also be made to resemble the human manner of control more, thus making more use of information feedback loops. The STW H Haptic programme is investigating systems involving ‘shared control’, in which the robot in question actively cooperates with the person who is controlling it. “This shared control is a revolutionary principle. In the current system, the master controls the slave, in this case, the robot. One-way traffic, in other words”, explains Van der Helm. An example of a promising application for

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shared control is use in keyhole surgery.

“The system has a direct contact with the tissue, and it feeds back the force that it senses. The surgeon feels what the system suggests and can choose whether to follow that or not.” Van der Helm is the programme leader of H Haptics, which stands for ‘Human-centred design of haptic interfaces’. Within this programme, universities and companies are collaborating on seven different projects, ranging from scuba diving to nuclear reactors.

Van der Helm considers positive collaboration with companies extremely important: “Whatever we develop must ultimately reach society through industry, whether in clinical practice or through the automotive or other industries.”

Conversely, industry sees the value in collaboration as well. “At a NeuroSIPE symposium last year we had a full house for two days in a row. Industry comes to listen to our scientific presentations, because there they get to hear about the future.”

Van der Helm also has considerable contact with physicians. In his own view he fits in well in this company. “Doctors and engineers sometimes have difficulty understanding each other, but the only way to achieve progress on a topic is to work with teams of specialists. I studied kinesiology and completed a doctorate in control engineering and mechanics. This makes me a generalist who can speak both languages.”

Clinical technology People who are able to bridge the gap between technology and healthcare, like Van der Helm, are still rare. We are working on this. Together with the university medical centres of Rotterdam and Leiden, TU Delft hopes to offer a Bachelor’s degree programme in clinical technology in 2014. Van der Helm is

involved in the content of the programme.

“Technology is increasingly being used in healthcare. Examples include complex image processing equipment and surgical robots. There is great need for people who can understand and operate the equipment, but they should also know something about the patient. We are working on a hybrid programme, in which graduates will be authorised to perform a number of medical procedures.”

Mentor Van der Helm is currently focusing his energies on these future generations of researchers and engineers. “I stopped being the central focus a long time ago.

It’s all about the young people in the department. They must be given the right opportunities. Fortunately, this is going quite well. Many of our grant applications for research projects are being approved, and we have been able to appoint excellent people to key positions.

They are also happy to come to us.”

Leading researchers, PhD students and undergraduates are all standing in line. In 2012, therefore, the TU Delft University Fund honoured him with the Mentor

Prize (Leermeesterprijs) for his role as founder of biomedical education and a source of inspiration for students and PhD candidates.

And that wasn’t the end of it. The STW Technology Foundation awarded him the Simon Stevin Meester prize for successfully linking research to socially relevant issues and applications. Van der Helm considers this an absolute high point in his career. “When I look at all the people who have received the award in the past, I feel very honoured.” The prize money of € 500,000 comes in handy as well. “The beauty of this prize is that we are free to decide how we are going to spend it. Many grant applications are rejected because the research is deemed

too risky. As a scientist, however, you have to take risks, otherwise you won’t progress. Nevertheless, I think that they now realise that I’m usually not far off base.”

However happy he may be with his prizes, Van der Helm is a contented man by nature, although he would like just a few more hours in the day. “If I had five times as long, I would be doing five times as many projects. I just really enjoy the work that I do.”

Open Education Professor Frans van der Helm is an ambassador for OpenCourseWare (OCW) and a supporter of open education.

“I subscribe to the philosophy that good training and education can be of benefit to humankind. Moreover, it will certainly do us no harm as a university to offer open education. Ultimately it will also attract students.

“The entire system of education is changing. I can see that in my own children, who also study here. They watch lectures on Collegerama at 1.8 times the actual speed, so that they are just able to hear what the lecturer is saying. In difficult places, they slow them down.

“We’re making increasing use of video. If you divide a lecture into

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individual topics, you can make videos in which the best lecturer explains each topic. Another possibility is to use a video of the best lecturer in the world. This gives you more room for discussion during your own lectures. Information is the beginning; knowledge is the goal. Interaction will always be important for students. If they have seen the video first, however, we can then discuss the application.

This is essentially the method used by the Harvard professor Eric Mazur. He suggests that academic performance can be improved by giving students more responsibility and allowing them to learn actively on their own.”

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Luuk van der Wielen

‘Bringing a sustainable society to maturity’ Professor Luuk van der Wielen is Professor of Bio-separation Technology in the faculty of Applied Sciences (AS). He is also the president of the BE-Basic Foundation, the international public-private partnership for the development of green technology. In 2012, he was appointed as a Distinguished Professor, in recognition of his many years of success in transferring knowledge to society. “I have always looked beyond borders – those of my discipline, those of the university and those of the academic world.”

What is a distinguished professor exactly?

We are already familiar with the title University Professor (universiteitshoogleraar), a special position reserved for leading professors.

The title is awarded primarily on the basis of their academic qualifications and performance. Other professors have made a similar contribution to TU Delft and their particular field, only via a different route, for example through valorisation. With this appointment, the Executive Board is creating a comparable position that allows me to carry out these activities in a more formalised way. The same applies to Professor Sybrand van der Zwaag of the faculty of Aerospace Engineering. He has been appointed Distinguished Professor in Materials Engineering.

I see the appointment primarily as an acknowledgement of my work on the bio-based economy, both from within and beyond my chair, and both within and outside TU Delft.

How do you transfer knowledge to society?

In a variety of ways. One part of what I do focuses on education. In Delft, we prepare young people from all over the world for their careers in society. Many of these careers will not be in academia.

For example, for the past 15 years I have been involved in the development of

our PDEng programme, a post-Master’s degree programme in which participants are trained to become design specialists for industry and other commercial sectors.

I’ve also been working at the interface of science, technological development and design for a long time, exploring how these fields can be concretely implemented in society. I participate in a wide range of projects through advisory committees and networks. The greening of the Port of Rotterdam is one example.

I was recently involved in the consortium that was charged with elaborating the ‘top sectors policy’ on the bio-based economy.

We established a five-year, billion-euro programme in which we can support this bio-based economy throughout its entire breadth. The industrial partners, who are willing to take on half of this amount, are quite enthusiastic about the plans.

It is also worth pointing out that BE-Basic is the world’s largest research programme focusing on the bio-based economy.

It is an important platform for the valorisation of knowledge generated in Delft. In the coming period we would like to further professionalise these efforts, without sacrificing scientific quality. I am convinced that that is possible.

That sounds like more than a full-time job, is that right?

Yes, that’s true. Professors do more than simply provide top-quality education.

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They also have to jump through all kinds of hoops to obtain funding for research projects. That’s a full-time job in itself.

If you excel in research, quite often you won’t have time to get involved in valorisation as well. It’s nice that I have now been given sufficient room to do this in a professional manner. I still have to plan my time carefully. If you want to do it well, a position at this level simply takes more than 40 hours per week. It’s not something I have a problem with.

You say that you look beyond borders...

Most of the innovation that we develop in Delft ends up abroad in one way or another – through the investments of our industrial partners, through our graduates or through talented researchers who are in Delft for a while. Moreover, the economy in the Netherlands is largely dependent on what happens in the international field. At BE-Basic, we do not restrict our focus to the Netherlands; we also consider areas including Brazil, Southeast Asia and the US. We look for knowledge, talent and scientific developments in these countries, as well as for opportunities for industrial activities and other forms of valorisation.

How important is sustainability in your work?

Sustainability is a basic condition for

‘The stone age did not end because there were no more stones’

Bioprocess Pilot Facility The Bioprocess Facility (BPF) that is being constructed in Delft is an important facility for BE-Basic. There innovative processes for industry can be tested on a pilot scale. The BPF also has a green dimension to it: instead of completely new construction, it is being based on the former DSM pilot plant in Delft. “We’re currently working on a considerable renovation and expansion project”, explains Luuk van der Wielen. “This will continue until mid-2014, but the gates will remain open the whole time. The BPF allows customers from industry, the SME sector, TU Delft and other sectors to use the facilities that they would not be able to finance on their own.”

Scaling-up research for bioprocesses is expensive because it requires complex equipment. Nevertheless, the step from laboratory experiments to the pilot scale is crucial to the development of sustainable alternatives to polluting processes and finite raw materials. That is why universities, companies and governments have joined forces to realise this testing facility.

everything that we do. Nobody at TU Delft would admit to being consciously involved in unsustainable endeavours.

The bio-based economy can make a huge contribution to sustainability by replacing fossil materials, which would result in considerable reductions in emissions.

On the other hand, bio-based is not sustainable by definition. Food production, which is one of the largest sectors in the bio-based economy, is in many cases not sustainable at all yet. Intensive agriculture is focused on production, in which over-fertilisation can lead to eutrophication of the groundwater and harmful consequences such as explosive algae growth. If you take everything into account, intensive agriculture consumes huge levels of energy. It also uses phosphates and other finite raw materials to maintain soil fertility.

How can we make it more sustainable?

By using the residues produced by the food industry, i.e. plant waste. This accounts for around 50-90% of what we grow. There is great potential for making better use of these resources. The waste streams can be processed into a wide range of raw materials and products, from protein-rich livestock feed and bio-fuels to bricks and automotive materials. The use of waste streams offers many advantages. It does not release methane emissions, which count as one of the main contributors to the greenhouse effect. Moreover, intensive agriculture is still characterised by low incomes for farmers and agricultural workers. If additional value could be derived from the harvest and distributed across the sector, this would be good for local economies.

We keep hearing about rising food prices and ‘food versus fuel’?

What’s the story?

‘First-generation bio-fuels’ are produced from food crops. For example, the price of

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rice or palm oil has doubled, even though only a small percentage is used to make fuels. Analyses of price developments show that drought, crop diseases, speculation and other factors have played a major role.

Nevertheless, the availability of food poses the greatest problem. When you look at this more closely, the issue actually revolves around problems relating to income, the availability of capital and infrastructure. In Africa, income inequality and the lack of a local market with international connections are the most important causes of hunger. If overproduction drives prices down one year, followed by a drought the next, it is impossible to respond to this effectively due to the lack of adequate infrastructure for storage and processing.

We have since made some progress in our thinking about ‘food versus fuel’. For example, within the framework of the Global Sustainable Bioenergy project we have recently been investigating scenarios that would allow bio-fuels to play a greater role while increasing food production through local access to energy for technological development and transport.

In theory, we are all in favour of sustainability. Surely you still encounter some resistance though?

Every significant change is accompanied by resistance. In Northwest Europe, and thus in the Netherlands, we have a certain level of affluence. Protecting this level makes us conservative. We tend to close ourselves off to the investments and behavioural changes that are needed in the long term to ensure a good future for ourselves, also.

The economy in the Netherlands is largely dependent on petrochemicals. Although this situation could carry on for years, change is needed. The Stone Age did not end because there were no more stones.

The large-scale exploitation of shale gas, as we see in the US, can offer short-term solutions, but it is still a fossil source.

In the long term, we will eventually run into limitations. Moreover, I’m convinced that it’s slowing down the transition to a truly sustainable economy. Why would a country want to commit itself to the whole sustainability programme when there are short-term gains to be realised by taking advantage of shale gas and similar developments? Given our competitive position, I don’t think that we can avoid it, but we should not let it blind us to longterm investment, which unfortunately is not as prominent in people’s minds yet.

Are we on the way towards this sustainable economy?

I’m certainly optimistic, but obviously it will take a great deal of effort. This is not due to a lack of technical ability. Neither is it due to a shortage of sustainable energy sources. We have enough of them – just take the sun. Both of these elements are also being connected to each other. We can do it; I just can’t predict when. The

situation in the Netherlands isn’t always a good measure of how things are going in the rest of the world. Countries like Brazil are making considerable economic investments in development, and they are not encumbered by advantage like we are with our affluence. What is needed here is a change in behaviour. As a society, we must realise that we cannot continue to pursue unbridled growth in both numbers and consumption. I see a role for myself in this regard. We need to talk to the world

around us, lay the facts on the table and enter into a discussion with stakeholders, including the general public, young people, politicians and fellow scientists. This is why I do not limit my activities to technological development. I also try to draw attention to these developments and help bring a sustainable society to maturity.

BE-Basic Foundation BE-Basic stands for Bio-based Ecologically Balanced Sustainable Industrial Chemistry. It is an international public-private partnership that is funded by the Dutch government, universities, research institutes and companies. BE-Basic promotes the development of bio-based industrial solutions for a sustainable society. TU Delft participates in the consortium’s Board. BE-Basic has been operating the world’s largest programme concerning the bio-economy, with a budget of € 45 million per year.

“We are primarily involved in technological development, including the testing, demonstration and optimisation of processes for industry”, explains board president Luuk van der Wielen. “We originally focused primarily on major companies, but we are now seeing that SMEs are finding their way as well. This is generating new collaborations. One good example is Bird Engineering, a former TU Delft spin-off, which merged with the CSM subsidiary Purac for the further development of organic PET bottles. This has been one of our greatest successes.”

It has also brought new tasks into the consortium. “Major companies do not achieve innovation through R&D alone. In many cases, it also

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occurs through spin-offs”, continues Van der Wiel. “We should be trying to identify exactly where the business opportunities are, and we should try to involve investors in these opportunities. One way that we are doing this is by working together with the Rabobank venture fund.” According to Van der Wielen, there is no shortage of funding at the moment. “There are currently a lot of asset writedowns in conventional agrosectors such as glasshouse horticulture.

Potential providers of funding are therefore looking around for new investments. The bio-based production of energy, materials and fuels could be a good supplement to the traditional ‘food and flowers’ sector.”

Individual companies and institutes can also approach BE-Basic in connection with European projects. “Major projects sometimes have budgets running up into the billions. On their own, smaller parties cannot play a role in such endeavours. Neither do they have time to attend meetings and defend their interests in Brussels. BE-Basic is representing a cluster of SME companies there.”

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Vincent Mourik and Kun Zuo

‘Majorana is the new graphene’ In 1937, Italian physicist Ettore Majorana predicted the existence of particles on the border between matter and antimatter. Three quarters of a century later, signs pointing at the presence of such majorana fermions were first detected in a laboratory at the Quantum Transport (QT) research group at the Faculty of Applied Sciences. All eyes were on Delft when Science magazine published an article on the discovery, and on Professor Leo Kouwenhoven, who led the research. Now we meet Vincent Mourik and Kun Zuo, who carried out the actual experiments.

You have probably heard of protons, neutrons and electrons, perhaps even of quarks, photons and muons. These are examples of fundamental particles, the basic constituents that make up all matter. Many such particles occur only under extreme circumstances, for instance when other particles collide at very high speed. This is why particle physicists try to discover them in particle accelerators, such as CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, which made the headlines in 2012 when CERN researchers announced the discovery of the Higgs boson. An important aim of particle physicists is to understand the structure and evolution of the cosmos, and one theory holds that “dark matter” is made up of majorana particles. An elementary majorana particle, however, has yet to be found.

Solid state Then what was discovered in Delft?

“Over the past 15 years or so, physicists gradually developed the insight that majoranas might also show up in certain superconducting materials, known as exotic superconductors”, Vincent Mourik says. “In that case, they emerge as a result of the collective behaviour of all the atomic nuclei and electrons in the solid. You can’t isolate them from the system and make them survive on their own.” It was these

that they found, and Mourik stressed that the correct description would therefore be “condensed matter majoranas”, something different from the elementary particle majoranas still being sought.

Elementary particles or not, it is still an exciting discovery. As Kun Zuo explains: “In the 1920s and 1930s, scientists identified two classes of quantum particles, fermions and bosons. When you interchange such particles, they show a distinctive kind of behaviour. The majorana fermion, however, is expected to show different behaviour. That is very cool, hard-core fundamental physics.”

Footprints The majorana fermion is supposed to be its own antiparticle, which means that many of its properties, such as charge, are zero and cannot be measured. How do you set about finding such a particle?

“Basically, we built a very large thermos to keep the experiment very cold”, Vincent Mourik says. “That’s because quantum effects can only be observed at very low temperatures.” And at a very small scale, of course. “We used semiconductor nanowires that were ‘grown’ in a laboratory at Eindhoven University of Technology.

We applied voltage across these wires and measured the current. Then we optimised the set-up and measured again. We went

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through that cycle many times, each time with small variations. All in all, it wasn’t too bad, though: after 18 months, we had our first positive result.” That result was a little peak in the conductivity, a little bit of extra current, consistent with the presence of majorana fermions.

Not exactly conclusive, Mourik admits.

“Right now, you could compare what we are seeing to the footprints of the animal.

We’re pretty sure there’s a horse out there, but we’re still far away from riding it.” The full proof will probably take many more years of experiments, Zuo adds. “We’re trying to get there. New theories are emerging on how we can get to a more ‘smoking gun’ kind of proof.” And the best part is, now there is some experimental evidence, theorists are coming to the QT research group to ask them to do further experiments.

Back in 2010, it was Professor Leo Kouwenhoven who focussed on one of a number of theories then going around about how to create majorana fermions.

“For about a decade, theoretical physicists had been formulating ideas”, Mourik says.

“But these became more practically viable only in the last couple of years.” One of these ideas turned out to be tailor made for Kouwenhoven. It involved semiconductor nanowires, a subject he had been researching for years. By September 2010,

‘If you waste a few months, another group might scoop you’ Quantum leaps It is always nice to stop and consider such a great discovery, but the research itself is of course continually moving on. Recently, Professor Ronald Hanson’s research group managed to achieve quantum entanglement between two electrons at a distance of three metres. This is yet another major step towards a network in which we will be able to connect the quantum computers of the future to each other.

Partly based on the majorana fermion, nanoscientists Leo Kouwenhoven and Lieven Vandersypen (TU Delft) and Carlo Beenakker (Leiden University) also aim to move a step further towards the development of a quantum computer. They are working on an experimental computer link in which the quantum state is protected. The European Union is supporting the research with a new ERC Synergy Grant worth EUR 15 million.

Even more impressive is the ‘NanoFront’ research programme, in which scientists from TU Delft and Leiden University intend to push the boundaries of nanoscience still further in the next ten years. Together, they will receive a so-called Gravity Grant (Zwaartekrachtsubsidie) for EUR 35.9 million, adding a further EUR 15 million themselves. The research will extend to exploring the quantum world in materials as well as the building blocks of living cells.

Kouwenhoven had formulated a research proposal, obtained funding and was looking for PhD researchers to carry out the experiments.

It meant that Kun was on his own.” Zuo adds: “There was a lot of pressure at that point. Rumours about our success had been going around. We wanted to finish our work and tell the world about it.”

Special intuition As it happened, both Mourik and Zuo were looking for research projects. They rolled up their sleeves and got straight down to work. “QT is very much an experimental research group”, Mourik says. “We interact with the theorists, but we don’t develop our own theories. We do the engineering part. We assemble the lab device, put together the chips in the clean room, fit them into the device and then start measuring.” When it came to making sense of the data, Kouwenhoven proved important. “He has a very trained eye and a special intuition for interpreting the results”, Zuo says. Kouwenhoven also managed to keep them on track.

“One reason we succeeded in a relatively short time is that Leo is really focussed”, Mourik says. “As PhD students we could get distracted by the interesting physics we would encounter, even though it would clearly not lead to the results we were after. He would then step in and tell us to move on.” Zuo adds: “And we needed that.

This kind of research is very competitive, so if you waste a few months, another group might scoop you.”

What was it like working at the cutting edge of science? “Working with Leo is really exciting”, Zuo replies. “He has all the right connections and you’re always doing something brand new. You could say he has the X factor.” The stakes were high, though. “It could have worked out differently”, Mourik points out. “We could have struggled for four years without a positive result. But that’s part of the game if you want to do experimental physics.”

They almost fell at the last hurdle. “When our data were about 80 per cent finished”, Mourik says, “I had an ice skating accident.

I had concussion after a head-on collision.

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Cliff-hanger It was Kouwenhoven who decided when to go public. “He’s a very good tactician”, Mourik says. “He made it into a bit of a cliff-hanger. He presented our findings at a few conferences, thus getting people’s attention. That also meant that other groups working on the same subject were aware of what we were doing. So at some point you have to decide that what you have is good enough and go public before they do.” That created added excitement.

“We were trying to beat other groups”, Zuo says. “So when we succeeded, it felt like a conquest.” They also gained some unique insights into the world of toplevel research. “It was fun for us as PhD students to observe the social dynamics at work”, Mourik says. “For example, even at this fundamental research level, it all comes down to how good you are at selling yourself.”

Eureka?

Important as their findings are, there was no real eureka moment. “There is no single moment of discovery, just a huge amount of data you have to go through”, Zuo explains. “That was a hard time. We only celebrated after the official publication, when everything had quietened down a bit.” Although a lot of the media attention focussed on Professor Kouwenhoven as leader of the research, Mourik and Zuo received their fair share of attention. “A nice result was that I got invitations to present our work to a general public”, Mourik says. Zuo, who is from China, even had a special visitor: “The Chinese vice-minister of Science and Technology came to see me. It was very nice to talk to him; you normally don’t get to meet

high-level politicians that easily.”

Majorana fermions may have been found now, but many fundamental questions remain unanswered. For example, the majoranas found at Delft are not going to teach us anything about dark matter in the universe; that is still up to particle physicists. They could, however, reveal some very important properties of matter at the smallest scale, opening up an entirely new chapter in fundamental physics. Is there also a practical application in sight? “There is, though it’s probably still years away”, Mourik replies. “Majorana fermions may hold the key to successful quantum computing. The ultimate goal of our department is proving the basic principles for a quantum computer.”

Developing a full-scale quantum computer based on those principles will be up to the industry, which has already shown a lot of interest. “Our research project is part financed by Microsoft”, Mourik says.

Thus far, qubits – the basic building blocks of quantum computers – are very fragile.

This is where the special properties of the majorana fermions come in. Mourik explains: “Two spatially separated majorana fermions can form a single qubit.

This means that a single qubit becomes non-local: the two parts of it can be very far apart. That’s a big advantage, since most mechanisms that destroy qubits only act locally. A majorana qubit is therefore expected to be very robust. And even

better, you can calculate with them in a very weird but robust way: by keeping the majorana fermions far apart and moving them around each other, you’re actually performing a calculation.”

Robust Qubits are still lab systems, however.

“We’re now at the level of tiny quantum computers that can solve very simple algorithms”, Mourik says. “However, the energy scales involved are very small.

It’s gone almost as soon as you look at it.

That’s one of the problems we’re dealing with. On paper, the majorana could solve this, but this is still theoretical.” Zuo is optimistic: “What you store in a computer should stay in it for a while. Robust majorana qubits are a good option for memory storage. Perhaps the future for quantum computers lies in combining

different kinds of qubits, majorana for storage and others to do the calculations.”

And what will the future hold for Mourik and Zuo? Obtaining a doctorate should be their next goal. “I don’t want to think about writing up my thesis yet”, Zuo admits.

“We still have some 18 months to go. Our research continues, and we’ll squeeze in the writing somehow.” Mourik also enjoys the research too much to let go of it yet.

“What we’re doing is entirely new physics.

It’s a very hot topic in the field of solid state physics. It’s like the new graphene.”

Both are now seriously thinking about continuing their science careers. “Good luck had a lot to do with it”, Mourik says, “but people do pay more attention to you after such a scoop.” Let’s hope this will open a few doors for them.

Mysterious Majorana The Majorana particle (or Majorana fermion) was named after Ettore Majorana, the Italian physicist who predicted its existence in 1937.

Nothing more was heard from Ettore Majorana after he boarded a ferryboat in Sicily in 1938. As with all unsolved disappearances, it attracted much speculation. Was he kidnapped, did he commit suicide or did he head for Argentina? Shortly before he disappeared, the brilliant Majorana was appointed professor at the University of Naples,

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but he had spent the previous years living as a hermit. However, a glimpse of Majorana was recently captured. On the cover of Science, in which the article on the particle’s discovery was published, there is a picture of the equipment used in the experiments. At the tip of the nanowire, it is possible to make out a portrait of the physicist on an appropriately minuscule scale.

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Vertical cities

New design concepts for an ageing community ‘Everybody Ages’ was the theme of the second Vertical Cities Asia, a design competition organized by the National University of Singapore. Twenty teams from Asian, American and European universities rose to the challenge and redesigned one square kilometre of land in the centre of Seoul, South Korea. Victory went to Delft, with both teams from the Faculty of Architecture winning joint first prize. Katerina Salonikidi, Maria Stamati, Stef Bogaerds and Jan Maarten Mulder were part of the winning teams. A great achievement, but they have not let it go to their heads: “The most important thing was doing a good job”, Maria Stamati says.

Land is at a premium in most Asian cities, hence the need to build upwards, creating vertical cities. In 2011, the School of Design and Environment of the National University of Singapore (NUS) launched a design competition for high-density cities. With three quarters of the global population expected to live in cities by 2050, innovative models for urban developments are urgently needed.

Especially in Asia, where mass rural– urban migration is the order of the day.

In a series of five annual competitions, universities are challenged to come up with new paradigms. “Everyone ages” was the theme for the second competition, as the number of people in Asia aged 65 and over is set to quadruple by 2050.

Site visit How did our teams prepare for the contest? “We had to submit a portfolio”, Katerina Salonikidi says, “and four teams were made up from among the entrants.”

These teams shared the preparatory research between them. Stef Bogaerds explains. “We spent two months reading a lot of case studies, exploring the demographics of Korea compared to other

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Asian and European countries, studying the social aspects of ageing, and so on.

After that, some of us went to Korea for a site visit.” The site itself was in the middle of Seoul, a city of 20 million inhabitants.

There they obtained more local data to incorporate into their research from the Seoul offices of management consultancy firm McKinsey and Company.

“For inspiration we also talked to local architects about their work”, Jan Maarten Mulder says.

A month before the competition deadline, two teams were selected to take part in the actual design contest. “Until then it had not felt like a competition”, Maria Stamati says. “After we were chosen we had one month to prepare the presentation, posters and booklets we were asked to produce. A scale model was optional, but we made one anyway.” All these materials had to find their way to Singapore, where the actual competition took place. They decided to bring the scale models as hand luggage. “Seven of us went to Singapore”, Salonikidi says.

“So we made seven small wooden crates that we could take on the plane. We had to redesign the models accordingly.” Their

‘It’s good to explore other ways to deal with public space’ Let’s meet the team: Open Ended City Stef Bogaerds is specializing in Urbanism. He is graduating with Design as Politics, a chair within the Faculty of Architecture. Design as Politics explores the political dimension of architecture and the architectural dimension of politics.

His graduation project centres on a polder area in the Netherlands, called Hoeksche Waard. “The Dutch government is decentralizing power to the lower governmental levels”, Bogaerds says. “I try to find out what the consequences – as well as the opportunities – are for regional planning and how this can increase democratic legitimacy. This calls for new decision-making processes.”

Jan-Maarten Mulder specialized in Architecture, and for his graduation he continued with the Vertical Cities project. “I decided to redesign a smaller part of the original site”, he says. “In South Korea, high-rise developments are devouring public space and street life is disappearing.

I tried to create the necessary density, whilst preserving public space. In my urban plan I designed a community learning centre that incorporates street life within the building itself, as well as spaces for people to study and learn.”

Both Bogaerds and Mulder have a fascination with Asia. After the competition in Singapore, Bogaerds took the opportunity to travel Southeast Asia. The recently graduated Mulder is now working in Japan as an architect.

Claudio Saccucci, Erjen Prins and Samuel Liew were the other three members of the Open Ended City team

crates attracted a lot of curious glances at the airport, but at least the models arrived safely, albeit in pieces.

Lifetime City The brief of the contest was to redesign one square kilometre of Seoul’s Yongsan – meaning Dragon Hill – district to accommodate 100,000 inhabitants living and working there. “Lifetime City” was the concept that Salonikidi and Stamati’s team came up with. “There is a specific distance the elderly can walk to find the things they need”, Stamati says. Successful residential areas therefore incorporate basic amenities such as shops, public transport, parks, places of worship and community centres. The team took traditional neighbourhoods as their yardstick, because there people and city have evolved together. “We wanted to retain as much as possible of the existing lifestyle and culture”, Stamati explains. “So we focussed on preserving the traditional parts of the site and densifying other parts.” Salonikidi adds: “We mapped out the various neighbourhoods and found nine distinct characters, among them a traditional neighbourhood, an electronics market, a park, and the waterfront. Some of these could incorporate high-rise building, others could not.” By applying a process of qualified densification, traditional lifestyles can be preserved.

Open-ended city Bogaerds and Mulder’s team designed for an open-ended city. As a starting point they took the distance an elderly person can walk. “We created an ideal circle with a radius of 400 metres – a five-minute

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walk – containing the right amount of health care, education, housing, offices and so on”, Bogaerds explains. “Within this circle we created hybrid centres where children go to school and there are services for the community, specifically the elderly. For this we used the existing primary schools, as these are usually the only open spaces in an already denselybuilt area.”

Hybrid centres have advantages other than efficient use of space: “When a community ages”, Mulder says, “there is more economic pressure on the workforce. We let different age groups interact, instead of separating them. “In such an environment, the elderly can take care of the children, for example.” Their ideal circle had to be juxtaposed onto the existing site. “You corrupt the circle according to the context of the area, such as parks and railway stations”, Bogaerds says. “Over time”, Mulder adds, “our circles will grow by different rules, such as the height of the buildings compared to the width of the street. That is how you get different identities for each neighbourhood.”

Mystery The actual competition was not without hitches. The models had been safely brought over by the teams themselves, but the posters and booklets had to be sent in by post. “We expected them to have arrived before us, but they never materialised”, Salonikidi says. “So we had to find a print shop in Singapore and have them all done again.” Their presentation board remained mysteriously empty until the very last minute. “Expectations were

very high, because the year before TU Delft came second, but now we had only an empty board”, Bogaerds says. Did the mystery perhaps increase their chances of winning? Not according to Mulder. “We were simply the best”, he says. And the jury agreed.

Complementary entries Life-time City and Open-ended City were awarded joint first prize because the jury considered them complementary. Why was that? One factor may be that they did their initial research together. “We based our designs on the same data and we drew our conclusions from them”, Salonikidi explains. Naturally, there were differences too. “With Lifetime City”, Stamati says, “we focussed on the existing site and tried to change as little as possible in order to retain the character.”

Bogaerds agrees: “You took the cultural approach. With Open-ended City we were a bit more pragmatic. If you have to incorporate 100,000 people on such small site, you have to change the structure of the city. For example, a vertical city needs different street dimensions than a horizontal city. You had more of an eye for the existing situation, we for the brief of the competition.”

And what made their designs stand out from the rest? “Our teams took into consideration that South Korea is an Asian country with a different culture”, Stamati says. “We didn’t treat it as a Western competition.” Salonikidi adds: “Some teams were simply too futuristic. Their proposals could have been for anywhere in the world.” What they did is also more sustainable, Bogaerds points out. “We

used the elements that were already there, and incorporated these elements according to the brief. Instead of seeing it as an empty plot and just doing your thing as an urban designer.” It won them first prize – and $15,000. What did they do with it? Unfortunately, that was not as much as it sounds. “We had to share it between all ten participants”, Mulder says.

“And it mostly went on expenses.”

Prize money or not, they still gained a lot from their Asian experience. “We spent a week on the NUS campus, which is a bit like a business district”, Bogaerds says. “The canteen of the Faculty of Architecture was a McDonald’s, and their Starbucks was open 24 hours. Students would study there day and night, enjoying the air-conditioning.” Apart from the trip itself, there was the design part. “Our teams were made up of students of Architecture and Urbanism”, Stamati says.

“It was interesting to work with people with a different specialism.” The brief also added interest. “The Netherlands is 95% finished; you never get a chance to add so much to one area here”, Bogaerds says. “Though working in a country that is culturally so different, makes you understand and appreciate more the things we do here.” Those differences are important, according to Mulder. “It’s good to explore other ways to deal with public space. It is important that South Korea maintains its individual qualities, such as the vibrant street life. It’s a unique country and it should remain that way.”

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Let’s meet the team: Lifetime City Katerina Salonikidi and Maria Stamati are currently specializing in Urbanism. They both joined ExploreLab, a graduation laboratory where highly motivated students with a very specific interest can explore their fascination in a research project and then make a graduation project out of it. As they are both from Greece, Salonikidi and Stamati have a thing for Athens.

Together with three other students they produced a research book on the city. They are now pursuing their individual graduation projects. “My project is about urban reactivation involving sensitive groups, such as drug addicts, immigrants and the elderly”, Stamati says.

Salonikidi is focussing on urban defragmentation: “I’m looking at spatial activation of public space in the city centre.” Not something that would be easily achieved, though.

“In Greece, you can’t demolish anything”, Salonikidi explains. “A lot of buildings are under preservation orders and there is also a very complex system of ownership.” This is what made working on the Vertical Cities such an interesting challenge.

Laura Dinkla, Johnny Tascon and Qiu Ye were the other three members of the Lifetime City team

Colophon Production: TU Delft, Marketing & Communication Editor: Agaath Diemel (Corporate Communication, TU Delft) Lay out: Liesbeth van Dam, Debby van Vondelen, Dominique Meijer (Media Solutions, TU Delft) Photography: Marcel Krijger (except pages 34 en 37: Paul Foley) Printer: Edauw en Johannissen Š TU Delft These Highlights are also available on our website: www.tudelft.nl

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