Knowledge security screening will cost universities millions of euros

The government will screen around 8,000 Master's students and researchers each year to secure knowledge in the Netherlands. They will screen people wanting to study or work in sensitive fields, where knowledge should not be allowed to ‘leak’ abroad.

The government posted the ‘Knowledge Security Screening Bill' online earlier this week. Now, citizens have three months to react to it. UNL will certainly do so, as it does not like the minister's plans at all.

Impracticable
‘This bill will result in an impracticable number of screenings and make the Netherlands unattractive to international talent,’ said Caspar van den Berg. ’All the while, it is uncertain whether this law will contribute to increasing security.’

But that's not all. According to Van der Berg, the screening is expensive, both for the government and educational institutions, and the cabinet is not allocating any additional funds for it. ‘Who knows if they will allocate any money for this’, he says. On the contrary, the cabinet is looking to significantly reduce the higher education and science budget. 

Costs
The screening affects approximately 40 percent of researchers working in science and technology, according to the explanatory notes to the legislative proposal. On top of that, the screening will involve Master's students. The costs would amount to 15.3 million euros annually for the government, on top of implementation costs of 7.9 million euros. The screening will be free for institutions and candidates, but everything surrounding it will cost money. The ministry is betting on 8.1 million euros per year and a one-time payment of 32 million euros.

Institutions must monitor the sensitive fields within their gates by maintaining a list of departments and research lines. They will also have a ‘duty to report’. Furthermore, they will be expected to improve the security of this sensitive knowledge, even if it means locking a laboratory door. Universities will be hit harder by this law than other educational institutions.

Busy
Universities have paid more attention to knowledge security in recent years, having taken all kinds of measures to improve it. According to public broadcaster NOS, hundreds of foreign researchers have had their applications rejected after the advice of internal advisory committees.

Knowledge institutions have also been able to ask questions to the government's Knowledge Security Desk. Van der Berg says that UNL would prefer to see this desk authorised to ‘advise individuals’ as that would be a better way to improve knowledge security.

China
Scientists are concerned that such a policy will jeopardise the internationalisation of science. Officially, the screening is aimed at everyone, including Dutch students and staff, but in practice, researchers from certain countries will be judged more strictly.

Politicians are concerned that the Netherlands is a target for knowledge espionage. The previous Minister of Education, Robbert Dijkgraaf, a renowned scientist, said in 2022 that Dutch academia has been 'rather naive’ and set about organising the screening.

They are particularly concerned about China after the Clingendael Institute wrote about how certain topics, such as human rights, could not be discussed in collaboration with Chinese colleagues.

Delta, the university magazine of the Delft University of Technology, revealed in 2021 that the university had unintentionally helped the Chinese army. A human rights centre at VU University Amsterdam also appeared to be sponsored by China. What's more, Chinese CSC scholarships are being perceived differently after evidence of PhD candidates being required to pass on information to their embassy.