After exactly six weeks, the mystery is solved: Ernst Kuipers’ new job is in Singapore. On Thursday morning local time it was announced that Kuipers will take up a management position at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), where he will lead the research department. He will also become an extraordinary professor at NTU.
For weeks it was unclear what the new position would be for Kuipers, who announced his immediate resignation as outgoing Minister of Health on January 10. Kuipers then wrote that he could not yet announce to the world what his new job would be, because it was linked to “a certain starting period”.
Kuipers came under a lot of criticism because there was uncertainty for so long, as did the fact that he prematurely exchanged the ministership for a new job. The course of events led to critical commentary from members of the House of Representatives and grumbling from his own party.
According to sources around Kuipers, the former minister actually wanted to act cleanly. When the offer from Singapore became concrete, he immediately tendered his resignation as minister and only then went through the formal application procedure. The six-week period would not be particularly long, also because the Singapore government still had to give official approval.
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Corona crisis
Ernst Kuipers (64) became Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) in the Rutte IV cabinet for D66 at the beginning of 2022, after a long career in medicine as a gastroenterologist. During the corona crisis, he gained national fame as chairman of the National Acute Care Network. In that role, he was concerned with the fair distribution of corona patients across the country. D66 asked Kuipers to become minister in order to have another doctor with practical experience lead the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, after Els Borst. Kuipers started with great ambitions to reform healthcare, but saw his full-fledged ministership end after a year and a half due to the fall of Rutte IV in the summer of 2023.
According to an insider, Kuipers soon after received offers for international top positions, but withdrew with a view to the House of Representatives elections. He would have liked to continue for another term at VWS, but that seemed to have become impossible after the PVV’s major election win and D66’s significant loss. After the elections, Kuipers started considering new international offers more seriously and the conversation with the NTU in Singapore started again.
Beautiful and sustainable campus
Nanyang Technological University is a technical university with 33,000 students, and also has medical, social and economic faculties. In the Times–ranking Of the best universities in the world, NTU ranks 32, above all Dutch universities (TU Delft ranks 48). The Singaporean university, relatively young at 32 years old, is praised in the rankings for its holistic, interdisciplinary and experimental educational approach. The university itself likes to pride itself on the fact that it is often mentioned on lists of the most beautiful and sustainable campuses.
Singapore is not completely new for Kuipers. In 2021, while he was still chairman of the board of Erasmus MC, he was appointed the first foreign board member of the National University Health System (NUHS), a group of hospitals and medical institutes. At the time, Kuipers called NUHS “an internationally leading institute”. He added: “I am convinced that we can learn from Singapore.”
With the collaboration of Martine Kamsma.