Deans: 'How can you not be sad about this?'

Utrecht University had already announced before the summer break that it would have to make significant cutbacks to its budget. The university came to this conclusion after the parties in the coalition announced their plans. At the time, the university's faculties and services were already working on their budgets for 2025, so they were already expecting a hard blow. However, on the day the budget was officially announced, the university found out that the government would allocate even less money to universities than expected.

For UU specifically, the cutbacks amount to 35.1 million euros in 2025. UU will receive a total of 707 million euros from the Dutch government that year. In 2026 and the years after, the university will get even less money, but it is not yet known how much less. They expect a total cut of 10 percent.

Next year, most faculties will be drawing down their reserves, but that will no longer be possible in the years after that. The Faculty of Humanities has already reached rock bottom.

Shared impact
DUB asked around and it looks like the faculty deans are judging the cutbacks with unprecedented severity. “It's an attack on education and science”, according to the dean of Social Sciences, Leoniek Wijngaards-De Meij.

The Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Arno Hoes, fears that the cutbacks will destroy the infrastructure for innovation in the Netherlands, something that cannot be restored so quickly. “The Netherlands is a knowledge-based country that earns a lot from innovation. The cuts will deal a blow to something we are very good at.”

For the Dean of Humanities, Thomas Vaessens, the arbitrary nature of the cuts weighs heavily. According to him, the effect this will have on staff and students is great. “The idea that there is a government saying that higher education needs to reconsider its priorities, and then reinforces that statement by cutting a billion from it – try not to get sad about that.”

Wilco Hazeleger, Dean of the Faculty of Geosciences, met with the Minister of Education, Eppo Bruins, on the day climate scientist Detlef van Vuuren received the Spinoza Prize. On that occasion, Bruins said he was proud of scientists. At the same time, the minister asked universities to cooperate with the assignment to save one billion euros. “He could also have said: ‘I am going to stand up for science and ensure that fewer cuts need to be made’.”

Disappointment
The deans of the faculties that were supposed to receive funding from sector plans are relieved that those funds have ultimately been kept alive. Initially, the rumour was that the sector plans would be scrapped. “The worst idea ever,” says the Dean of the Faculty of Science, Isabel Arends. After all, this would involve structural funding and people had already been hired permanently.

However, the starter and incentive grants have been sacrificed to save the sector plans. So, now, all the deans are indignant. The starter grants are being completely terminated and the incentive grants are being halved – another decision that will have major consequences, the deans warn. These grants would have allowed additional people to be hired so that young lecturer-researchers would have more time to dedicate to research, for example.

Mark van de Streek, Director of Veterinary Medicine, finds it “incredibly regrettable that government funding that was intended to create some much-needed peace and quiet is being withdrawn again.”

According to Humanities Dean Vaessens, the decision is “a bitter pill to swallow”. In that faculty, it is unclear what will happen to the plans to "sustain" their range of courses, give lecturers more research time, and appoint more PhDs.

Elaine Mak, Dean of the Faculty of Law, Economics & Governance, says: “We are disappointed that the starter and incentive grants are being cancelled so quickly. We had only been working on it for two years. We were getting everything going and they were starting to work. It's a huge change.”

Fewer international students
The faculties are not happy about restricting internationalisation, either. The new "Internationalisation in Balance" law, which is intended to reduce the number of international students and make Dutch the main language of instruction at universities, is a major concern for them, as are the budget cuts that are now linked to it.

The Faculty of Law is already seeing a decline in the number of international students in the Economics programme. The faculty is taking stock of how many international lecturers are interested in taking a Dutch course to also teach in the new Dutch-language track in Economics.

The Dean of the Faculty of Science has similar concerns: “We've been hearing from all sides that we need more STEM students to meet the demand. STEM faculties are already noticing that students are staying away from the Netherlands, although that effect is still limited in Utrecht. But this phenomenon is downright worrying.”

She also fears that fewer students will choose STEM programmes because they are famed to be hard and the government wants to introduce a fine for students who take longer than an additional year to graduate. “We're also afraid that students will no longer dare to choose combination programmes such as Mathematics and Physics, which we offer. That would really be an impoverishment.”

In the Faculty of Medicine, students sometimes take longer to graduate because they have to wait to start their internships. “The fine will make students more stressed out, especially those without wealthy parents,” says Hoes, the dean at the Faculty of Medicine.

Most deans can't yet say exactly how and to what extent their faculties will have to tighten the belt in 2025. In some cases, the faculty council has yet to approve the adjusted budgets. Nevertheless, none of them hide their anger and concern about the future of education and research.

Faculty of Science:

"We must tighten our belts"

Dean Isabel Arends says: "The cancellation of the starter and incentive grants from 2025 onwards will hit us just as hard as cutbacks to the planned resources for the sector plans would have. We also got around 5 million euros per year for that. From next year on, it will be more difficult for novice university lecturers to set up a research line and appoint a PhD candidate.

"The annoying thing is that people already had expectations for the next few years. Some will be very disappointed. All in all, this turns us into a less attractive employer. Innovative power will decrease for us and the Netherlands as a whole.

“We used to have buffers with which we could offer researchers something extra, but we will not have room for that anymore. We will get less money per student than before. All faculties will suffer greatly from this, especially faculties with many students, such as ours. We will also feel the increase in wages as a result of the collective labour agreement (CAO).

“We must tighten our belts. As a result, we are extremely cautious about hiring new employees and we are cutting back on equipment and recruitment. I could go on and on.”

Faculty of Veterinary Medicine:

"There is no reason to panic and we don't want to do that either"

Mark van de Streek, Director of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, says that the faculty can absorb the deficits for 2025 thanks to reserves. “But we are concerned about the cuts to the higher education budget and their consequences, of course. This means we are looking even more critically at our expenses.”

“For 2026 and beyond, we have asked the three departments to come up with a future-proof financial plan. They have until the end of this calendar year to do so. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. But this initial phase is about working more efficiently and, above all, making choices. We also want to save on the faculty support organisation, but we don’t know how yet.”

“The budget for 2025 is titled Enhanced Dike Monitoring. We are critically evaluating our costs and which vacancies we will or will not fill. Currently, no vacancy freeze is in place in our faculty. I have not heard any specific concerns from students so far, but I can imagine they must be concerned about the fine for students who take longer to graduate. Veterinary medicine is a very tough study.”

“As a board, we try to bring peace and stability; and communicate well with our employees. There is no reason to panic and we don't want that either.”

Faculty of Humanities:

"This is going to hit us hard"

For the Faculty of Humanities, the cutbacks come at a very inconvenient time, says Dean Thomas Vaessens. “This is going to hit us hard.”

Most of all, he is afraid that the innovations his faculty is working on will be jeopardised. The faculty board wants to focus primarily on increasing interdisciplinary collaboration on topics identified by the national sector plans. In this way, the faculty’s broad range of disciplines should remain affordable.

Vaessens launched his ideas two years ago when the faculty seemed to be in a healthy financial position thanks to additional investments from the university and the expectation of the sector plan funds, as well as the starter and incentive grants. Now, the financial situation is looking a lot less rosy. The 9-percent raise established by the collective labour agreement in 2023 hit the faculty particularly hard. The current cutbacks come on top of that.

“It is a good sign that the sector plans are being maintained. This means our innovation agenda does not have to be taken off the table right now. At the same time, we are losing that same amount elsewhere. We will be implementing the renewal agenda in the coming years without having the necessary additional resources for it.”

The faculty’s draft budget for 2025 shows a significant deficit: more than 7 million. Consultations with the Executive Board will be held this autumn on a covenant. “We are currently considering measures that will already impact us in 2025 and 2026, but in the future, it will mainly have to come from long-term measures.”

Faculty of Medicine:

"We fear even more cutbacks"

Although Medicine is financed in a slightly different way than the other faculties - UMC Utrecht also receives money from health insurers and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport - the faculty is also feeling the consequences of cutbacks, according to Dean Arno Hoes.

“Like the university, UMC Utrecht is working on a major renovation project. In addition, our collective labour agreement foresees an even more significant raise, our lecturers and researchers are also included in that. The recent cutbacks by the new government are coming on top of all that. We are in a good position, financially speaking. But it is a major challenge.”

“The new government is cutting back on the National Growth Fund, NWO and ZonMW, to name but a few, from which a significant chunk of UMC Utrecht's money comes from. There will be fewer subsidies available and more competition among scientists. But we cannot yet make estimates like 'this many staff members will have to be laid off or we cannot buy this and this device.'”

“The government's message is that science and innovation are not that important, even though the Netherlands is a knowledge-based country which earns a lot from innovation. The cutbacks are a blow to something we are very good at. In addition, we fear that if the cabinet cannot implement other cuts in the coalition agreement, this will come at the expense of the money for science and innovation.”

Faculty of Geosciences:

"We don’t want to make hasty decisions"

According to the Dean of Geosciences, Wilco Hazeleger, the next calendar year “doesn’t look great” for his faculty. “But our starting position is not bad."

The faculty had already prepared for bad weather before the summer break and is going to use up its reserves. The final adjustments to the 2025 budget are being worked on. Hazeleger doesn’t want to discuss where money will be taken away from until the budget has been discussed by the faculty council.

In the meantime, the faculty is preparing for the years to come. “We are now looking into where we can save money. We are in an exploratory phase and don’t want to make any hasty decisions.”

The fact that the Minister of Education, Eppo Bruins, is not taking money from the sector plans but rather from the starter and incentive grants is a relief for many Geoscientists. “We hired young assistant professors with that money and most of them are still in the temporary phase of their contract. They were very afraid of losing their jobs. As a faculty, we had told them that although the sector funding was being discontinued, but that didn't mean they had to leave. But, when you are in such a position, of course you worry. That makes total sense.”

However, just like the Faculty of Science, several colleagues who were counting on a starter grant next year will have to be fired. “We can no longer give them the peace and quiet we had promised when the funds were awarded.”

A vacancy freeze is out of the question, says the dean. “Every year, we draw up a strategic personnel plan in which we take into account who is retiring or leaving for other reasons. It is now even more important to see if those who leave will be replaced or if their position can be filled differently.”

Hazeleger hopes for good news after the protest by all universities, scheduled for November 14. “We are demonstrating because this affects all of us.” The House of Representatives will discuss the education budget after the protest. The dean has higher expectations from the vote in the Senate. “I'm really hoping for good news.”

Faculty of Law, Economics & Governance:

“We want to hold on to our ambitions”

As a professor of Law, Dean Elaine Mak chaired an independent committee that carried out a rule-of-law test of the coalition agreement. She noted that deviating from the government’s previous commitments is contrary to the principle of a predictable and reliable government. “The commitment to higher education that was put on paper in 2022 is now being reversed. This is worrying.”

“Our faculty's budget will be cut short by more than a million in 2025. We are a financially healthy faculty and we have sufficient reserves to absorb this shock. By 2028, the deficit will increase further to several million. We will therefore also have to make cutbacks in 2026 and 2027. The loss of the starter and incentive grants is the biggest blow to our budget. We had not spent part of those funds yet. We are now absorbing the first blows of this loss of resources.”

“We want to hold on to our ambitions. Since we have a bit more time, we'll have the opportunity to make better choices, while also taking the workload into account. In addition, we are looking for ‘quick wins’ on our expenses, like meeting externally less often.”

According to Mak, the faculty’s income from education will decrease due to lower student numbers. The size of the staff will have to be adjusted accordingly, which will possibly cause attrition. “We want to continue to carefully examine what we need to provide good education, such as small-scale classes and forms of assessment. This could include a smaller range of electives, which would ensure we'd have enough teachers to teach courses.”

“I've heard from the academic staff that teachers with a temporary contract are worried. That makes sense. Their situation is more uncertain than before.”

Faculty of Social Sciences:

“We will do our utmost not to increase the workload”

“It is too early to make statements about the consequences of the cutbacks,” says Dean Leoniek Wijngaards-de Meij. “It is clear that the cutbacks will be felt in all areas and that we will have to make do with fewer employees."

Social Sciences will miss out on the vast majority of 4.5 million euros from the starter and incentive grants in 2025.

“The exact amounts from 2026 onwards are still unknown, but we expect cutbacks to amount to 10 percent of our turnover.”

“We are currently investigating how we can best absorb the budget cuts. We have imposed a vacancy freeze this summer, which will remain in effect for a few years. This means that temporary contracts will not be extended and the employees who leave, retire or become emeritus will not automatically be replaced.”

“The faculty board has been talking to various committees within the faculty and the university about the choices we need to make in the short and long terms to save on education, research and business operations. In doing so, we are taking into account how the cuts relate to the university's strategic plan and the impact they will have on the workload. We will do our utmost to ensure that these cuts do not lead to an increase in workload.”

“However, it is clear that the choices made by the government are putting the country at a disadvantage and the pillars of our knowledge economy are being shaken.”

University Corporate Offices:

"Restrictive vacancy policy and sharp choices"

The directors of the University Corporate Offices did not want to talk to DUB before the austerity measures had been presented to the employees. This week, the Service Council was informed and employees received an email.

According to the message, the University Corporate Offices will have a deficit of 14.7 million in 2025, which requires smart and sharp choices. The long-term perspective and the ambitions laid down in the strategic plan are being monitored.

An important consequence of all this is that the University Corporate Offices are already analysing whether open vacancies should, indeed, be filled. There will be a limit to external hires. The directors also propose to "scale down, adjust or cancel some projects or programmes".

For example, the budget for the USO fund for educational innovation, the Sustainability Office, and investments in IT will be reduced. However, efforts will be made to save money on all fronts: the university will no longer livestream its anniversary celebrations or the Opening of the Academic Year, for example. The corporate offices expect even more measures to be necessary to be financially stable after 2025.