'UU Board should have consulted faculty council on Economics closure'

“Although we would very much like to believe the Executive Board, we wonder if we can still do that after everything that has happened.” This is how Willem Mingelen, member of the Faculty Council of Law, Economics & Governance, expresses the sentiment that still prevails in the faculty, even after several months. 

The plans to switch the Bachelor’s programme in Economics & Business Economics (USE) to Dutch have been shelved, but the faculty's trust in the university administration has not been restored yet. This became clear at a Faculty Council meeting specially convened to discuss this matter on 18 June. University President Hans Brug was present at this meeting to answer questions from the Faculty Council members.

The additional meeting was scheduled following the publication of legal advice from the law firm Sprengers, as requested by the Faculty Council and the Faculty Board. The lawyers concluded that the Executive Board should have sought the Faculty Council’s advice before deciding to discontinue the English-taught Bachelor’s programme. According to the lawyers, the Executive Board should have done so at “an early stage of the decision-making process” and informed the Faculty Council of the plans earlier. They also concluded that the right to information has not been respected.

In light of these conclusions, the Faculty Council decided to discuss this matter with the UU President. Hans Brug is new at the UU presidency: he succeeded Anton Pijpers at the beginning of 2026, which means he did not attend the UNL meetings in which UU agreed with other univerisities to switch its Economics programme to Dutch. However, as Pijpers' successor, he is responsible for the course of events.

Outrage
Economists at UU were outraged when the Executive Board announced these plans in December 2025. For months, they had been told that a Dutch-taught track would be created to exist alongside the English-taught programme. However, Pijpers had already agreed in April with other Dutch universities that its Economics programme would switch to Dutch. This would be done to reduce the number of international students in the country.

The Dutch government changed shortly afterward, and the current cabinet is far less critical of internationalisation. Unlike its predecessors, the Jette cabinet seeks to retain degree programmes taught in other languages. The Executive Board was relieved, as it was able to reverse the plans of switching the Economics programme to Dutch. In the end, the English-taught track will remain and be supplemented by a Dutch-language track, as previously announced.

Right to information not upheld
Councillor Irina Mak finds it problematic that the Executive Board kept the plans secret from the Faculty Board and Faculty Council. After all, the plans could have been shared on a confidential basis. “We need this information to carry out our task, which is to provide solicited and unsolicited advice to the board.”

Brug acknowledges that the Executive Board made mistakes in its decision-making and agrees that  the information could have been “shared or discussed under certain conditions”, so that the council could have carried out its duties properly.

Agreements not made public
The Faculty Council still does not know exactly what Utrecht University agreed to with UNL regarding the reduction of international student intake.The council is requesting that this information be shared, in line with the legal advice.

Brug is not willing to do this. According to the UU President, all sections relating to Utrecht University have been shared with the University Council, and he maintains that he can't share the entire document because it contains confidential information about other universities. “My peers do not want us to sharethat  information with you.”

Brug is also not keen on Mak’s proposal to share the agreement with passages redacted instead. “What difference does it make whether I say it or whether it’s redacted?” he asks.

Lack of trust
The Faculty Council will have to take the UU President at his word, and that is exactly the problem, according to councillor Willem Mingelen, who underscores that coucillors can no longer trust the board because it has failed to be transparent before.

According to the council member, ensuring openness in UNL’s decision-making could help restore the trust of the Faculty Council, the Faculty Board and the Economics programme in the Executive Board. “We want to put this behind us, but we can’t because we are unable to form a complete judgement on exactly what happened,” says Mingelen.

Brug reiterates that the Faculty Council can trust him. “Ever since I started here, I’ve tried to communicate as openly as possible about this. Apologies have been made, and we acknowledged that many things did not go well and must not happen again. I hope this will restore a little trust in the Executive Board.”

Additional agreements

According to the chair of the Faculty Council, Stefanie Beyens, the key point is that the council must be able to trust the decision-making processes, regardless of who is the university president at the time. “We want the assurance that the student representative bodies will be involved and that, in the event of a disagreement, we can take steps to bring matters to light.”

Beyens wants to know what the Executive Board intends to do to strengthen the position of the student and staff representative bodies, so that this cannot happen again. She would like to reach agreements with the Executive Board on this matter. This is in line with the legal advice, as the lawyers recommend stipulating that national agreements can only be made ‘subject to the advice or consent of the student and staff representative bodies’.

Brug is currently unwilling to do so. According to him, all sorts of discussions take place at the association of Dutch universuties (UNL), where they also explore how to lobby in The Hague. Brug: “It would be highly counterproductive to make discussions within the UNL framework public and share it with everyone. We would no longer be able to represent our collective interests properly.”

No commitments

The Faculty Council is not satisfied with this response. However, Brug repeatedly refuses to answer when asked what he intends to do to strengthen the council’s position. “I have not prepared an answer to that question, as I don’t know which steps would be useful or necessary. We have learned that we must communicate with the Faculty Council in good time, and we are trying to get student representatives more involved in what we discuss at UNL. However, I'm not going to reveal everything that is discussed within the UNL framework. As a member of the Executive Board, I must make my own judgements in this regard, for the reasons I mentioned earlier.”

What constitutes an international student?

The plans to slash the English-taught Economics programme in Utrecht are off the table, but the other UNL agreements remain in place. For instance, Utrecht University has agreed to adhere to a maximum intake of 658 international undergraduate students per year. However, the Faculty Council wonders what constitutes a foreign student, as they don't know UNL's definition. Is it based on the student’s nationality, the country where the student currently resides, or the country where the student was educated?

"It is based on the country of origin," explains a policy officer. The faculty council members are outraged when they learn that UNL uses the same definition. For them, this further confirms the importance of making UNL agreements public.

Chair Stefanie Beyens says: “It is such a political question as to who is Dutch and who is an international student, especially when we apply low admission thresholds for international students. Why does UNL think they have any legitimacy to make that definition? I also wonder why the members of the Executive Board, who are not elected and can only be questioned by representative bodies, assume they have the legitimacy to determine who is Dutch and who is an international student.”

Brug cannot answer that question either. He needs to look into the matter, as he did not participate in the UNL discussions regarding the definition of an international student. “I’d be happy to take these reflections and questions on board.”