At the end of 2024, the four political parties of the governing Dutch far-right coalition cabinet, namely Geert Wilders' PVV, the VVD, BBB, and NSC, decided to cut 1.2 billion euros from the approximately 50 billion euro yearly national budget for education and research administered by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. This specifically anti-science move received necessary backing from four other political parties outside of the governing coalition, namely CDA, SGP, ChristenUnie, and JA21.

Then, in 2025, the chair of the Executive Board of Universiteit Leiden, Annetje Ottow, decided to translate this national cut of approximately 2.5% into a yearly budget cut at the Honours Academy of 50%.

As a direct consequence of this, my teaching there was cut.


Looking back, I am especially proud of the course in Human Touch, Technology, and Research (“MATeO”), and of the associated hard work of first creating, then giving and developing it for 8 consecutive years, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.


In each iteration of the course, we first studied the fundamentals of human touch, and then the scientific cutting edge of new technologies for it. Then, and in a way also applicable to areas outside of human touch, we performed a full cycle of experimental scientific research, philosophically and statistically grounded, and going from the research question and experiment itself to the analysis and conclusion, leading to publications such as here and here.


No longer being part of the collaboration at the Honours Academy is deeply regrettable to me, and I'm thankful to everyone there for the friendly atmosphere, general decency, countless interesting conversations, and professional and educational cooperation over the years.