Operation Beethoven: I’m not holding my breath

Sooner or later, ASML will “have had its fill of the petty bickering” and go to France or Germany after all, said Joost Frenken, dean of the Science and Engineering faculty at the University of Groningen (RUG), in the Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad. Frenken is disappointed because his university is receiving far less from the Beethoven budget than he had hoped.

His dismay is justified. The distribution formula for the additional educational funds turned out to be based on the number of jobs related to the semiconductor sector in the region in question. As there are hardly any in the north of the Netherlands, Groningen has to make do with 7 percent of the budget. But would a RUG graduate in physics or engineering be any less valuable for ASML than one from Eindhoven University of Technology? Brainport’s educational institutions as primary suppliers notwithstanding, it’s unwise to aspire to train all semicon engineers in a single region.