UU Council wants insight into UNL agreements after Economics failure

"Something unbelievable just happened here, and I hope it has never happened before at this university." University Council member Gerhard Blab did not hide his indignation during a well-attended council meeting last week. "We were not even informed late. We were deliberately misinformed."

On Monday, the Executive Board had to account for the agreement it reached with other Dutch universities in April 2025 to limit the influx of international students. By reaching an agreement at this level, Dutch universities prevented all programmes from having to pass a language test to determine whether or not they should be taught in English, as proposed by the Internationalisation in Balance Bill.

However, one consequence of this agreement was that the English-taught track of UU's Economics programme would have to be discontinued. The news came as a shock to UU economists. The faculty board of Law, Economics & Governance also felt blindsided, as did the faculty council. Until that point, the Executive Board had only said that a Dutch-language track be added to the existing English-taught track.

Last month, the Executive Board was relieved to announce that the English-taught track would be maintained after all. The coalition agreement presented by the new cabinet is less strict regarding education in other languages. Nevertheless, the course of events has severely damaged confidence in the Executive Board.

Anger and frustration
This was also evident in the words of Coen Rigtering, a lecturer in the Economics programme and also a faculty council member at Law, Economics & Governance. He had been invited by the University Council to talk about the impact of this episode on the programme and the faculty. According to him, people are still angry and frustrated. "How would you feel if you suddenly found out that the information on which you based your personal and professional choices was unreliable?"

According to Rigtering, the issue raises questions about decision-making at UU. A letter from the Executive Board has not dispelled his impression that former University President Anton Pijpers acted largely on his own when making internationalisation-related agreements with UNL. In a letter responding to questions from faculty council members of Law, Economics & Governance, the board states that the president had provided them with "regular verbal feedback", with "an emphasis on the process". Rigtering: "I think we can all agree on one thing: never again." 

Although the new university president, Hans Brug, has only been in office since January, he had no choice but to take responsibility for the course of events at his first council meeting. “It is clear that things did not go well in this process. I apologise for that once again. We must learn from this episode, and we have already learned from it.”

Brug answered questions from the councillors, but it remained unclear to what extent other Executive Board members were aware of the agreements Pijpers had made.

Brug would only acknowledge that incorrect information had been shared. He said he could not comment on whether the university community had been “deliberately” misinformed. He did not want to speculate about his predecessor's possible intentions at a time when he was not yet on the board.

Rector Wilco Hazeleger had just taken office last year when the agreements on self-governance were put on the table. He repeated the formal explanation that the Executive Board had already given and spoke of a political-strategic consideration by the presidents of the several universities. For a long time, it was assumed that the English-taught tracks could be retained. That's why they did not communicate anything about it. "But that should have been done."

Vice-President Margot van der Starre, who had been working with Pijpers for some time last April, did not participate of the meeting because she was sick.

Strong recommendations and no decisions
The members of the University Council concluded that local representative bodies in Utrecht are sidelined when agreements are made at the national level. This is not the first time this has happened. When universities agreed on rules for demonstrations on university grounds, representative bodies were not involved, either. Those rules had to be adjusted at Utrecht University after the University Council intervened.

On behalf of the entire council, student council member Lot Peters asked the Executive Board to “communicate more transparently, more promptly and more comprehensively about decisions made in the UNL context”. In addition, according to the council, UNL decisions should henceforth be regarded as weighty recommendations rather than final decisions, so that representative bodies can still express their views on them. UU should also convince other universities to do the same. "UU could set an example."

University President Hans Brug promised to work with the council to “see if we can make better agreements about decisions made in the UNL context”. He added that he would never enter into agreements without consulting his colleagues on the Executive Board. He also believes that UNL decisions that have a “significant” impact on Utrecht University should be discussed by the representative bodies. However, he did not make any concrete commitments during the meeting. Before that can happen, informal consultations with the council must first take place, and any suggestions for changes must be thoroughly investigated.

Student council member Lloyd-Leonard Opdam reacted by saying that he would not rely on what the Executive Board considers “significant”. “I believe that everything discussed by UNL that concerns UU should be shared with the council.”

Restricting the number of international students
The question remains what will happen now with the agreement universities reached on self-regulation to limit the number of international students. The closure of English-taught tracks may have been called off, but that does not mean that the same applies to other agreements.

For the time being, universities are assuming that the limits on the number of international students set for each university will remain in place. However, developments in The Hague are still very uncertain. UU previously announced that, according to joint agreements in Utrecht, the annual intake may be 658 students. At present, there are around 770.

The council members asked the Executive Board to provide more insight into the logic behind that number. They also asked once again for the document containing the figures from all universities to be made public. So far, the board has said it cannot provide this document because it concerns confidential information from other institutions.

Meanwhile, the Economics programme is still not reassured, according to lecturer and faculty council member Rigtering. In his opinion, the Executive Board must take significant steps to restore that confidence. As far as he is concerned, the Executive Board has a debt to repay. It will have to help make the new Dutch-taught track a success. In addition, if it wants to further reduce the influx of international students, it should not have to rely solely on the Economists.

Rector Hazeleger also believes that the political climate remains worrying. Despite the coalition agreement, the internationalisation of science remains under scrutiny. However, he did promise that economists would not bear the brunt if the number of international students does indeed have to be reduced. “That must be a shared responsibility for all English-language programmes and lectures.”