Times Higher Education features a recent article on an agreement to reduce the number of Welsh universities from 10 to 6. This must be one of the most radical reforms in a long time. Somehow I cannot yet imagine cutting back the number of Dutch universities from 13 to, say, 8 in the next few years. And yet, we too are challenged to demonstrate critical mass in research and education. Today we had a fruitful conversation with all Deans about the research profile of Erasmus University and the shared ambition level that we wish to determine together with Delft and Leiden. We still have an excellent track record in both research volume and impact, though the trend has been bending slightly since 2005. Recently, we have won another 15 veni grants from NWO, a result to be proud of. In the context of our alliance with Delft and Leiden, we’ll be looking at research pooling and cross-departmental collaboration. Looking at our longlist of research excellence, we have some 40 domains that qualify as leading on a European or even global scale. Next steps include a workshop with all Deans to boil down these peaks of excellence to a distinct and recognizable, meaningful research profile for Eramus. The emerging product will be used as input for Delft and Leiden (who are undergoing similar processes) to develop a research strategy for this emerging cluster.