Screening of foreign students and researchers will take years

Are foreign researchers or students coming to the Netherlands to steal knowledge? This fear has been gaining momentum lately, but the Dutch government hardly has any effective means to do something.

Fine-meshed
The previous Minister of Education, Robbert Dijkgraaf, came up with a new law that allows the government to screen students and researchers from outside the EU before they come to work or study in the Netherlands. Justis, a service of the Ministry of Justice, would investigate whether each student or researcher has malicious intentions.

The new Minister of Education, Eppo Bruins, is pushing through that bill, but he is also adjusting an important aspect of it. The minister told the Parliament that he intends to draft a more precise formulation about the types of knowledge and courses that are considered "sensitive". This way, it would be clearer which foreign students and researchers should be screened.

The previous minister proposed to designate entire disciplines as "sensitive", but the proposal was heavily criticised. For instance, the scientific association KNAW called for a more "fine-meshed" definition. That's what Bruins is working on.

Delays
The demarcation of risk areas is as important as it is complicated. What exactly makes knowledge susceptible to espionage? And how quickly does the scenario change? How many people will ultimately need to be screened? If too many people must be screened, the law will be difficult to implement; if too few do, the law will not be effective. The state attorney will have to consider this sort of question, which could cause even more delays.

Most of all, it is Justis that needs more time. Due to a full schedule, the organisation will not manage to start screening foreign students and researchers before 2028. Next spring, Bruins hopes to present a bill to the general public, so that all Dutch citizens can react to it. According to his officials, the law could come into effect in 2027 at the earliest.

Until then, educational institutions must decide for themselves who will be granted access to their knowledge. In 2022, the government set up a Knowledge Security Desk to help universities do this, but it does not advise institutions on individual cases.