Biochemistry professor Henk Kauffman almost moved to America after his retirement. He studied the influence of mould on the airways’ defence system. It turned out to be good career path, because he was regularly invited to the United States to talk about the subject. 

‘I was more well-known in the field of mould research in the US than I was in the Netherlands. They told me to come to them when I retired at sixty-five so I could continue my research. But by the time that happened I didn’t feel like it anymore.’

Airway diseases

Turns out he didn’t need to move anyway. A few months after his retirement in 2004, Kauffman was offered a five-year contract at the UMCG, becoming the coordinator for the internationalisation of research into chronic airway disease. 

Because their English wasn’t good enough for them to practise medicine, they were hired as lab researchers

He worked five days a week and was paid for two of those, on top of his pension. ‘I was working with universities from all over Europe, from Uppsala in Sweden to England and Germany. I enjoyed that a lot.’ 

When Sibrand Poppema became the UG’s board president, Kauffman was given another task: supervising Chinese PhD candidates.

China

Poppema had a lot of contacts in China and had arrangements with Chinese doctors, allowing them to do PhD research in the Netherlands, Kauffman says. ‘They were doctors, but because their English wasn’t good enough, they weren’t allowed to practise, so they were hired as lab researchers.’

Kauffman quickly realised that there wasn’t just a language barrier, but also a big cultural divide. ‘Chinese professors and research supervisors are absolute authorities. When students don’t understand something, they can’t go to them to ask questions. The students had the same attitude during their research here.’ 

Glass led to one of the biggest changes in Western thinking: the Age of Enlightenment

This sometimes impeded the relationship between PhD candidates and their supervisors and led to a waste of PhD time. Kauffman organised symposia where he invited older Chinese students and guest lecturers to talk about the difference between education in the Netherlands and China, encouraging students to please ask questions. 

Culture

‘The best part was the contact with China’, he says. ‘I loved getting to know that completely different culture.’ His cultural interest led Kauffman to various work groups, which then led to him teaching at elderly education institute HOVO on cultural differences, consciousness, and empathy, among other subjects. ‘That last course attracted 120 paying students and we had to rent a church building to accommodate them all.’ 

Together with two other professors, he founded the Senior Academy Society in 2013 and he decided to focus on the phenomenon of transparent glass. ‘People don’t realise that glass is responsible for one of the biggest changes in Western thinking: the Age of Enlightenment. Lenses, which are made of glass, suddenly made it possible to see and understand things that were either very small or very far away.’

Art

The use of glass can also tell us a lot about the course of history, Kauffman says. He and professor of materials chemistry Moniek Tromp will be studying the origin of glass objects from the sixteenth and seventeenth century that were excavated in the province of Groningen. ‘The composition of the glass will lead us to the location it was made’, he says. The Covid pandemic has halted that project for now, however.

He’s currently focusing on the depiction of glass windows in paintings, on which there is no literature, Kauffman remarks. ‘I’d like to write a book on it one day. But that project will take a few years.’ For now, he’s trying to make a name for himself by writing articles on the subject. ‘I can tell that people are surprised. They’re like, he’s a biochemist, what does he know about art?’