Speech by Sigrid Kaag, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation at the opening of the academic year at the University of Groningen

Speech | 31-08-2020

Life is a series of cycles.

Recurring moments that anchor us in time and help us structure its chaos.

There’s a beauty to these cycles.

They are rituals connecting us to those who went before and reassuring us that others will follow.

They ground us in tradition, as well as continuously urging us forward.

They connect us.

The academic year is one such cycle, and its opening is one such connecting ritual. I’m honoured to be speaking here today, at the opening of the 407th academic year of the University of Groningen.

It’s a historic moment, as this is the first time that the university is opening almost entirely online.

I’m sure this isn’t what many of you were hoping for.

If you’re a new student, you were probably looking forward to starting university life in this exciting city. Away from parents and the usual grind: a new life, new opportunities, new adventures.

Instead, orientation and lectures have been digitalised.

I understand that this is difficult. Sitting in your room staring at a computer screen is hardly how you imagined student life to start

It’s also asking a lot from university staff, who’ve had to drastically rethink their teaching, their methods and research.

Many of you may feel tired, frustrated and possibly on edge.

I understand. We all want this to be over and done with.

But the best way to get there, is to keep going.

For as long as we have to, as this is also part of a transition.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The theme of today’s ceremony – Making Connections – is well chosen.

Because if there’s one thing that characterises universities, it’s connections.

They’re in the rush a scientist experiences when she finds a new pattern in data. They’re in the sharing of new ideas. And they’re in the lifelong friendships that students form in lecture halls and in this city’s famous nightlife.

Connections give meaning to knowledge. And the quest and thirst for knowledge.

In his beautiful novel Stoner, John Williams tells the story of a poor farmer’s son who enrols at university to learn about agriculture, but instead becomes entranced by Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 at a lecture: ‘This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, to love that well which thou must leave ere long.’

What does this mean? – a professor asks Stoner.

He’s unable to answer that question, but he knew how to live it. A voice reaches out to him from centuries before, and for a brief moment, their lives connected.

It was an unexpected encounter, like so many of the events that define life. For Stoner, it changed everything. Because of that sonnet, he dedicated his life to literature.

Many of you, starting or resuming your studies, will have experiences like these. Moments that quicken your pulse and engage your mind. It may be a line of literature, or an elegant mathematical formula – personally I have a hard time imagining this, as someone who failed mathematics, but there are elegant mathematical formulas, of course, for the scientists, and those up to the level. It may be a complex system or a striking social phenomenon. Whatever it is, something will fly off the page and embed itself in your mind, and eventually, your life.

In that respect, university is all about beauty.

About seeing value in things that can’t always be measured, quantified or monetised.

We live in an era where the dominant belief is that if you can’t count it, or put it in an algorithm, it does not add value, or is not valuable.

I think that’s a significant mistake.

Because I believe that the essence of humanity lies in our inner voice. The thing that drives us forward and compels us to seek new horizons, both in this world and in ourselves.

This inner voice speaks to all of us, wherever we live, whomever we are, regardless of colour, age, gender, or background.

Education is one of the best ways to find this inner voice and channel it into new ideas, new opportunities, different ways of thinking and new expressions of curiosity and creativity.

We need all of these, if we are to address successfully the challenges we face: a global pandemic, an economic recession and an intensifying climate crisis.

These are today’s global challenges, and they require a collective, global effort to address them, let alone to resolve them.

In short, they require us to connect across borders.

To recognise a common purpose, and to work together.

And it all starts with education. With giving people the tools they need to improve their lives, and the lives of others. Education increases equality and gives people a good shot, at least a fair shot, at a better life. So we should recognise the importance of having inspiring teachers, qualified teachers, who help students make the most of their abilities. Whether it’s at primary school, secondary school, technical school or university, teachers should have the time and the funding they require to assist their students to maximize their potential.

This is why the debate about recognition and reward in academia, started by Dutch researchers, is so important. And why I embrace the initiative.

Because it all starts with education. It’s a fundamental human right. The Netherlands puts education front and centre in its development policy. We co-fund several programmes that aim to improve education in the developing world, and in crisis settings, and to help young people everywhere unlock their potential.

Over the course of the next decade, this will only become more important. The corona-crisis threatens to close classrooms to a generation of children. In many developing countries, parents are forced to keep their children home, to not allow them to continue their education, and instead find work, often in the informal sector. Around the world, a generation is graduating from university, unsure about the economic future that awaits them, and all of us face the deep uncertainties of what the world will look like after this crisis.

It’s precisely that uncertainty that demonstrates the importance of science. When states were forced to close their borders, teams of scientists continued to interact and to share knowledge across these borders.

They began working non-stop when the virus started to spread. Across the world, scientists have spent long months in laboratories, and we owe them all a great debt of gratitude. They will surely develop a vaccine that will end this pandemic.

I cannot think of a better demonstration of the value of science.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Those scientists are working on a concrete solution to an immediate problem.

I hope their efforts also inspire us to recognise the relevance of all other scientists, who do similar work, but without knowing where it will lead.

Their efforts are in free and fundamental scientific research. An endeavour through which so many things have been discovered, often without anyone even consciously looking for them.

This is because the greatest discoveries are often made on paths that were taken without knowing the final destination. Groningen’s very own Nobel laureate Ben Feringa is an excellent example.

But the importance of taking unknown paths is denied far too often.

If science is not efficient – whatever that may mean – it’s apparently useless – to some.

This strange denial of science’s value is everywhere, and sadly quite prevalent.

I see it when faculties and disciplines are pitted against one another in unnecessary competition.

I see it when pundits pretend that funding pure research into the nature of the universe is similar to throwing money into a black hole.

I see it when we ignore the fact that understanding and solving social challenges requires the entire body of academic work and knowledge: the arts, natural sciences, the social sciences and medical science.

This is a fundamental problem, and I would not want to point fingers at others. Successive governments have failed to value the importance of free and fundamental research. We all need to take a look at ourselves, and our own roles in this regard. The current government may have invested heavily in research and education, but it simply hasn’t been enough.

And my party D66, also recognizes that more needs to be done. We have a responsibility, that’s why we need to take a next step.

It’s true that the education ministry’s budget is larger than it ever was. But there are also more students and researchers than there ever were. We expect staff to do ground-breaking research, while also educating a growing number of students, and competing with each other for the increasingly small chance of getting new projects funded.

So it’s no surprise that many academics now lead almost

monastic lives: teaching during the day, doing research at

night, writing grant proposals at the weekend.

It’s because of their hard work and commitment that Dutch science remains world‑class.

But this is not a situation we can sustain.

We can’t create excellence through exhaustion.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We simply can’t expect first-rate science, if science itself is not a first-rate budget priority.

This is a fundamental point: it relates directly to our purpose as a nation. Do we want to lead or do we want to follow?

I can tell you my answer.

In The Hague, we often talk about the NATO target of spending 2 per cent of our national income on defence. I understand and share this sentiment, because freedom can’t exist without security.

But neither can it exist without knowledge.

That’s why I say: when we talk of the NATO target, we need to bring up the knowledge target that was agreed in Lisbon: 3 per cent of our national income needs to be dedicated towards research and education.

Because if we’re serious about the importance of research and education, we also need to put considerable funding on the table.

We need to invest, so that we can continue to lead in freedom and security.

But we shouldn’t be waiting. In the upcoming elections, for my party, the knowledge target, will be a significant goal. But I sincerely hope that all will embrace the importance of knowledge, and make it a target. Because it reflects on all of us, and is an investment worthy of all of the Netherlands.

This is an issue that goes beyond politics. It’s an issue that reflects society. We’re all in this together, and we need to take a first step.

Only research and education can help us find a better way out of this crisis, or any unforeseen future crisis.

Knowledge may be expensive, but if we try to calculate the cost of ignorance, we know the outcome. The math is very simple, in this regard.

In fact, it seems to be another cycle.

A point that we, as a society, always return to.

We invest in what we think is important, and then we cut costs.

I opened with the importance of cycles, and I would like to close with it as well.

Specifically, with the importance of maintaining some cycles, but breaking others.

This is one we need to break.

We need to stop cutting corners in research and education.

We need to dedicate ourselves, as you do, to finding the improvements that are required, necessary, and appropriate.

We need to keep finding answers to the global problems we face.

I know that the Netherlands, as an innovative country, knowledgeable, daring, and always questioning, we will be part of that first frontier to break this cycle.

Because even when the future seems most daunting, people will rise to the occasion.

It’s when we reassess old ways of thinking, and improve ourselves by adapting to new situations.

We learn to think differently.

We learn to break the cycle.

We learn to be better.

Together, as a society, not in the least, thanks to science and our education system.

Thank you.