Dijkgraaf allocates 200 million euros to universities

Last autumn, the Minister of Education, Robbert Dijkgraaf, awarded an initial 60 million to universities. Now, he's allocating 140 million euros on top of that. This money is supposed to fund the so-called "sector plans" for the STEM sciences, Technical degrees, Social Sciences, Humanities and Health. This is not a one-off payment, it is a structural contribution.

With these funds, the minister hopes to generate more "calm and space", as he put it. The universities promised to employ more staff in about 1,200 permanent posts, and are making joint choices about the direction of their research.

“This is a unique operation in the history of Dutch academic policy,” wrote the committee commissioned to assess the plans by Minister Dijkgraaf. This is not the first time there are sector plans, but were never intended for all domains.

Languages
The choices concerned, for instance, the subject of sustainable energy in the Science sector plan, and medical robotics within the Technology sector plan. The most striking plan, however, affects modern languages.

Programmes for the languages Dutch, German and French have been suffering. “Despite several initiatives that aimed to turn the tide, language teaching has found itself in a vicious circle,” reported the committee. Too few students are opting to study a language these days, exacerbating the existing shortage of Dutch, German and French teachers in the Dutch school system. As a result, the quality of language teaching at school is being affected, which inspires even less students to dedicate their university studies to a language. 

Up to now, universities have mostly tried to keep individual programmes up and running. “This is not particularly effective, and is untenable in the long run.”

That's why the committee is excited to work on Bachelor's programmes at the national level over the next few years. These joint programmes are expected to see the light of day in the academic year 2025-2026.

But the Dutch language will not gain a national Bachelor’s programme after all. It is not yet clear why the committee decided not to. In his letter, Minister Dijkgraaf summarises the advice as follows: Dutch language programmes should strengthen cooperation.

The universities are also advised that a joint degree – that is, a single diploma awarded by different universities – should be given for "modern languages taught at school". The same option could also be explored for other languages suffering lecturer shortages, such as Greek and Latin.

And why provide these programmes in different cities? Is this not rather inefficient? As their report puts it: “The committee also advises exploring whether a single location for some of these programmes might be a preferable option, from a macro-efficiency standpoint.”

According to the planners, another way of reviving these language programmes would be to improve collaboration with interdisciplinary programmes, and the committee agrees. This would be with younger programmes such as intercultural communications, artificial intelligence, and minorities & multilingualism, but also more established ones such as history, communication sciences, and journalism.

Dijkgraaf
In a letter to the House of Representatives, Minister Dijkgraaf praises the sector plans, in part because they lead to “clear-cut choices”. He describes the financial support as a “very important milestone and an excellent result.”

“This allocation allows the implementation of all the sector plans to begin”, Dijkgraaf writes, including the introduction of national Bachelor’s programmes in the modern languages.

Problems
The sector plans will not magically solve the problems in higher education and research, however. The committee also mentions the arrival of foreign students. “Each domain has its own bottlenecks in the area of internationalisation, and its own ideas about how to address them”, they note. The sector plans do not effectively tackle these problems.

Moreover, the Ministry is currently working on new ‘starter and incentive funding’ for researchers. These cut across national agreements, and it is not yet clear how this will work out in practice.

Permanent posts
With regard to the promised permanent contracts, the committee warns against excessive haste. When recruiting a large number of lecturers the universities, “especially in today’s tight job market”, universities should keep a close eye on the quality of research and education, suggesting that the tempo “be adjusted in order to safeguard recruitment quality”.

Another advisory document will be published before the summer, in which the committee will examine these themes in more detail. The Nationale Commissie Sectorplannen (NCSP) is co-chaired by the chemistry professor Bert Meijer and the public administration professor Mark Bovens. The other three committee members are the family medicine emeritus professor Henriëtte van der Horst, the ecology emeritus professor Louise Vet, and the history professor Beatrice de Graaf.