The UG is considering joining a lawsuit against the Dutch government, following the example of two other universities.
University board president Jouke de Vries mentioned this on Thursday during the university council meeting. ‘We have until 15 June to make a decision on this’, said De Vries. He has also requested that the issue be discussed again within overarching organisation Universities of the Netherlands (UNL).
On Tuesday, the Dutch Upper House approved major budget cuts to higher education. In response, UNL announced that Radboud University in Nijmegen and Tilburg University will take the government to court to challenge the cuts to their budgets.
Matter of principle
UNL chair Caspar van den Berg, the former dean of Campus Fryslân, called it ‘a matter of principle’ during an interview on television programme Nieuwsuur.
By implementing the cuts, the government is violating the administrative agreement made in 2022 between the universities and then-Minister of Education Robbert Dijkgraaf. The agreement included, among other things, 300 million euros in funding for starter and incentive grants for academic research.
Investments
According to Van den Berg, Tilburg University is particularly hard hit because it made significant investments based on that agreement. Nijmegen mainly wants to see how the court views the cuts. ‘We want an independent ruling from the court on the legal value of an administrative agreement’, said Van den Berg in Nieuwsuur.
According to the UNL chair, it isn’t necessary for all fourteen Dutch universities to file lawsuits ‘to make a point’, but he did not rule out the possibility that more might follow. The UG could potentially be one of them, said board president De Vries.