A look back on Robbert Dijkgraaf’s time in office: was he too polite?

In 2008, Robbert Dijkgraaf was the president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. A renowned scientist, he couldn’t imagine ever becoming a minister. He even referred to politics as a kind of black magic. “Look, in Physics, you can say: if I press this button here, a light will go on there. If you push a button in politics, maybe someday a light will go on somewhere far away, but you don’t know when and you don’t know where,” he said in an interview with the press agency HOP. 

High hopes
But, in January 2022, he did enter the political arena after all. He became the Minister of Education, Culture and Science representing the D66 party. Rarely has a cabinet member been welcomed with such enthusiasm. Reporters, columnists and cartoonists all praised him and even the protest group WOinActie said they had “high hopes” for his ministry. The only sour note came from the daily newspaper De Telegraaf, which called him a technocrat. 

In short, the stage was set for a major disappointment. But Dijkgraaf had an easy start, as he was given additional money to spend. Over a billion euros were added to the science budget and he was tasked with reinstituting the basic student grant, a benefit that had been scrapped in 2015. 

Sure, not everyone was satisfied with the new grants (some found it too meagre), but Dijkgraaf’s reputation remained untarnished. Even his critics understood that he hadn’t chosen the amounts himself.

Style
In debates, Dijkgraaf proved to be a good listener. Most ministers stare at their phones or consult their notes when participating in long debates, the newspaper NRC noted. “All but one. Robbert Dijkgraaf, Minister of Education for D66, always listens.” You could have mistaken him for a spectator at a tennis match.

Dijkgraaf was also happy to seek advice from others. Before reintroducing the basic student grant, he presented several options to the House of Representatives. The parties in the cabinet wanted to increase the supplementary grant by scrapping the 50-percent discount on the tuition fee for first-year students. From there, it was smooth sailing. 

He was so courteous that even his political opponents appreciated him and he was rarely the target of personal attacks. Perhaps that’s why one of his major political pitfalls didn’t stand out as much as it could have: his apparent inability to convince right-wing and populist parties that he was setting the right course. 

Foreign students
Take internationalisation, for instance. To the annoyance of right-wing parties, Dijkgraaf seemed unbothered by the influx of foreign students. He withdrew a bill introduced by his predecessor even though the number of non-Dutch enrolments kept rising. In his view, the commotion this caused was overblown: he scornfully referred to the annual spate of newspaper articles about international students forced to sleep in tents as a "tradition" marking the start of the academic year. In any case, he didn’t want to be rushed. Rightly or not, he underestimated how right-wing people viewed this issue.

Dijkgraaf spoke of diligence, checks and balances, and sound agreements with administrators. He said he needed some time to think about the matter, asking for consultation after consultation. In the end, it would take more than two years for him to submit an internationalisation bill to the House of Representatives – and he was already in a caretaking capacity when he did it.

Meanwhile, populist parties blamed the lack of student housing on international students and pretended that simply going back to teaching in Dutch would be a miraculous solution. 

Equal opportunity
Most parties were sympathetic to Dijkgraaf’s efforts in terms of equal opportunities, although some of them boiled down to semantics. For example, he wanted to do away with the term "higher education" in everyday language to emphasise that all forms of education are of equal value. “Anything we can do to reduce differences is good,” he stated at the time. 

The minister took decisive action when the news broke that DUO, the agency responsible for student financing, was using discriminatory practices in its efforts to combat fraud, mainly targeting students from immigrant backgrounds. This emerged after reports by HOP, Investico, NOSop3 and Trouw. The ensuing scandal had a profound effect on him. He immediately ordered DUO to pause the algorithm it used to identify suspicious students and commissioned a thorough investigation into the agency’s anti-fraud measures.

Nevertheless, he didn’t acknowledge that innocent students had been affected, nor did he wish to strengthen students' position in such cases: in case of doubt, they are still at a disadvantage. Dijkgraaf preferred to wait for a system review to be completed, arguing that the right course of action would be clear once the results were in. But now that the cabinet has stepped down, everything is up in the air again.

Science
His science policy shows the same pattern. In his first public lecture as a member of Rutte's fourth cabinet, Dijkgraaf said to the scientists present: “Many of you know me as a former counterpart, as ‘one of us’. I sincerely hope that I will have the privilege of remaining one of you in the years ahead, even during my term as minister.” 

Dijkgraaf seemed eager to protect academia from politics and populism. “Let’s all stand by the facts to protect our scientists”, he once stated. His message was that we still desperately need science to solve big problems such as the coronavirus pandemic, climate change and social inequality. 

Despite not wanting to rain on his parade, NRC columnist Maxim Februari still warned that it all sounded a bit out of touch with reality. After all, academia was beset by integrity issues, while the pharmaceutical industry was raking in exorbitant profits. “People read about these things – I read about these things – and the public isn’t stupid. So why do science administrators invariably churn out these glowing texts, written by their marketing departments, in which science is presented as a shining beacon of knowledge that cannot be questioned?”

Dijkgraaf’s arguments failed to convince his opponents. Right-wing party BBB won the Provincial Council elections, despite their poorly argued opposition to the nitrogen emissions legislation and their efforts to undermine trust in scientists.

Extra funding
Dijkgraaf had hundreds of millions of euros in extra research money, and he was going to spend it. He wanted researchers to have peace of mind to do their work. Universities were given 200 million euros a year for national cooperation plans and funds were also earmarked for start-up and incentive grants for new university lecturers and other scientists. 

In this case, he seemed to be in more of a hurry. Dijkgraaf also pulled off a clever bit of political manoeuvring: he put his critics on a committee together with administrators to flesh out the plans, and they actually came to a consensus. There were some minor quibbles, but basically everyone in Dutch academia hailed the outcome as good news. 

However, right-wing people have a more one-dimensional view of science. They soon demanded: "What are we paying for? Why isn’t all that money going to engineering, innovation or better medicine?"

In an election debate, VVD minister Christianne van de Wal called Dijkgraaf a “fantastic minister”, just before ridiculing his policies and pleading for austerity. BBB’s Mona Keizer, recently tapped as the new housing minister, stressed the importance of working with the business community. “You can come up with all these wonderful ideas, but how are you going to roll them out?"

Contempt
And then there’s PVV’s outright contempt for science and expertise. PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB (the parties in the new cabinet, Ed.) are set to cut one billion euros from higher education and research, which PVV MP Reiner Blaauw sees as a reason to celebrate. He hopes the cuts will sound the death knell for "woke activism" at universities.

“That was so painful to hear”, Dijkgraaf recently said in an interview with NRC. “I get the impression that it’s a rooted desire for revenge, which I find difficult to accept.” 

Perhaps he paid too little attention to the political battlefield. He positioned himself as an outsider in The Hague – someone performing the noble task of implementing sensible policy. Called to serve. 

Looking back now, De Telegraaf’s less-than-enthusiastic reaction to his appointment can be seen as a portent of things to come. Level-headed governance doesn’t always do the trick. In the end, Dijkgraaf proved too polite to offer a strong enough rebuttal to populists. 

Read more: DUB's cartoonist Niels Bongers looks back on Dijkgraaf's time in office.