It is with deep regret and shame that I have to read in the news today in the Telegraaf of January 24, 2012, that the Board of Directors of Delft University of Technology appears to have declared more than the maximally allowed costs for reimbursement for many years in a row. According to the newspaper (not the best in the Netherlands, but still…): "Together, the three directors declared more than 1 million Euro (!) between 2008 and 2011."
What makes matters even worse is that, instead of showing remorse and promising to improve on themselves they state that such an offense would be "common practice for all employees." This is so untrue! As dedicated and committed professor I have never ever in my whole life travelled business class, even not on long-distance flights. Whereas companies such as Analog Devices allow their employees to travel business class on long-distance flights.
When I travel by train, I save money for my university by putting my personal 40% discount card (‘kortingskaart’) to good use.
And when I travel by car, even when my car is stuffed with students, I get only 19 cents per kilometer. Parking costs and tollway costs are not reimbursed. Last Friday I went to the Erasmus Medical Center to visit the Neuroscience Department. We went by car as this was the cheapest and the fastest. Parking costs were 6 Euro; the distance: 15.6 km. When my travel expenses will have been processed I will receive only 5.89 Euro, which is even less than the actual and factual parking costs.
I knew it. I should have never become a university professor but a university director instead.
Wouter
Last Tuesday, dear Readers, Senad Hiseni, honorary member of the Biomedical Electronics Groups (as he seems to have good contacts with Barak Obama), won the Best Poster Award at the annual ICT.Open in Veldhoven, the Netherlands. The jury decided that the poster contained just the right amount of information, was very informative and nicely laid out, but also well presented by its presenter. 
Today I learnt that the junior author of the manuscript submitted to my journal, of which I reported in the blog below, had sent in the cover letter on the senior co-author’s behalf, without the senior co-author knowing it. If true — the whole situation becomes quite confusing and blurred, I feel — then the senior author is not to blame for the whole situation but his junior co-author.