It started in Leiden on 10 March. Then it moved on to Utrecht, Nijmegen and Amsterdam. By the end of April, 12 cities across the Netherlands had taken turns to shut down research and higher education activities for a day, with more than 30,000 people taking part. On 10 June, academics, students and supporters will strike again ¨C all together this time ¨C against what has been described as the ¡°demolition¡± of Dutch higher education ¨C or, after education minister Eppo Bruins, the ¡°Eppo-calypse¡±.

Under the current Dutch government, the country¡¯s most right-wing in decades, the education sector as a whole faces budget cuts of €1.2 billion (?1 billion), with €500 million withdrawn from and : a cut in the region of 4 per cent. And universities will receive a further financial hit if proposed legislation is passed to heavily restrict English-language teaching, with the aim of cutting international student intakes.

Moreover, after years of growth, domestic intake is also expected to go into decline in the coming years because of a demographic shift ¨C a particular blow given that the Netherlands¡¯ primary university funding model is tied to student numbers. And a new ¡°knowledge security bill¡± could impose researcher screening requirements that sector leaders have described as ¡°disproportionate¡±, warning that they will repel international talent.

That bill may worsen the Netherlands¡¯ already relatively?low ranking?in the European Parliament¡¯s 2024 Academic Freedom Monitor, according to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). A more general source of pressure on academics is the polarisation that has gripped the Netherlands, like many other countries, in recent years, culminating in the shock victory of Geert Wilders¡¯ far-right, anti-immigration, anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) in the November 2023 general election.

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Ever since then, according to KNAW president Marileen Dogterom, there has been a sense that ¡°everything is adding up in the wrong direction¡±.

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It took almost six months for a new government to form after the election, but the new coalition, comprising the PVV, the conservative-liberal People¡¯s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), the centre-right New Social Contract (NSC) and the populist agrarian Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), took decidedly less time to alarm the higher education sector, including by imposing sweeping funding cuts in its May 2024 outline agreement.

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Then, in September, Bruins announced that both ¡°starter¡± grants for early-career researchers and the ¡°incentive¡± grants that universities distribute at will would be scrapped in their entirety.

So bad has the situation become that when the coalition¡¯s first budget was passed last month, several universities announced plans to take legal action, arguing that the government had violated a 2022 ¡°administrative agreement¡±, which promised €300 million a year to fund the grants.

The budget cuts are already having an impact. Institutions including the University of Twente, University College Roosevelt, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Open University of the Netherlands have all warned of potential layoffs, while research projects approved on the assumption of starter grant funding have been scrapped.

¡°The consequences are concrete,¡± said Caspar van den Berg, president of the umbrella body Universities of the Netherlands (UNL). ¡°We¡¯ve seen universities announce restructuring and layoffs of academic and non-academic staff. We¡¯ve seen universities terminating programmes. We¡¯ve seen the termination of research projects with a very clear societal benefit: in the medical sphere, on climate, on housing.¡±

Some universities have implemented hiring freezes, said Arnoud Lagendijk, a geography professor at Radboud University and a board member of the AOb education union. ¡°If people leave, then colleagues just have to take over their tasks,¡± he told 91ÇÑ×Ó. ¡°It¡¯s increasing work pressure.¡±

The sector¡¯s relationship with the government, it seems fair to say, is not great. Universities ¡°had agreed to invest in young scientists via the starter and initiative grants, and those have just been unilaterally undone by the current Cabinet¡±, said a spokesperson for the executive board of Tilburg University. ¡°This makes the Cabinet an unreliable partner to make agreements with and poses the question: what is the value of an administrative agreement? It has become an instrument for short-term steering by The Hague.¡±

Sector leaders are quick to note that the underfunding of higher education and research did not begin with the current administration; indeed, the funding campaign group WOinActie, which has played a central role in recent protests, was founded back in 2017. At that time, ¡°the pressure on staff, especially on teaching staff, was really increasing, partly because of the number of students increasing and the budget not growing accordingly,¡± said KNAW¡¯s Dogterom.

After a 2021 report by PwC concluded that universities had been structurally underfunded, the previous centre-right government, led by Mark Rutte, ¡°acknowledged this, and started investing more¡±, Dogterom said. ¡°There was some optimism that things were headed in the right direction.¡±

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In justifying the recent budget cuts, some politicians have framed the post-2021 funding injections as ¡°an extra investment, a sort of bonus¡±, she said. ¡°But there was never a bonus. There was just an effort to correct the underfunding that was happening before.¡±

The proposed ¡°Internationalisation in Balance Act¡± (WIB) also predates the current government: it was first introduced in 2023 by then education minister and academic physicist Robbert Dijkgraaf, who said in a statement at the time that the ¡°unchecked¡± increase in international students had led, in some areas, to ¡°overcrowded lecture halls, high workloads for lecturers and a lack of housing, and puts pressure on the accessibility of education¡±.

Back in 2021, several Dutch universities requested the power?to limit their international enrolments; they are typically obliged to admit all students who meet entrance requirements.

The majority of international students in the Netherlands come from the European Economic Area, with neighbouring Germany the most common country of origin. But because European Union law requires that such students be admitted on the same terms as Dutch students, the proposed new law would only allow universities to restrict intake from non-EEA countries.?

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The law is?tougher than proposed restrictions that were stalled by political instability?in the previous parliament ¨C and universities don¡¯t like it. Much criticism of the bill, as it stands, centres around the ¡°test for foreign-language education¡±, or TAO, which will require bachelor¡¯s programmes to pass a mandatory assessment before they can be taught entirely in a language other than Dutch.

Permission will only be granted in four circumstances: the course is at an institution in a border region or another area with a ¡°shrinking population¡±; it relates to a sector with labour shortages; it is only available in one location; or it is ¡°inherently international¡±. Programmes that fail to meet these conditions must deliver at least two-thirds of teaching in Dutch.

¡°The criteria for whether you pass the test or not are very unclear,¡± said van den Berg. ¡°They¡¯re also beyond the control of a programme itself, because they¡¯re going to look at how many comparable programmes there are in the country, so this causes a lot of uncertainty.¡± Should the test be put in place, van den Berg predicted a ¡°massacre of programmes¡±.

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In April, Dutch universities offered to take their own measures to ¡°rebalance internationalisation¡±, among them a reduction of English-language programmes in psychology and economics, courses in the Dutch language for international staff and students, and more support for international students to enter the Dutch labour market after graduation, so that the skills they learn in the Netherlands benefit the nation, particularly in sectors with high numbers of vacancies.

However, universities¡¯ implementation of the measures depends on one condition: that the foreign-language test be scrapped for existing programmes. ¡°The TAO is far too rigid and places a heavy administrative burden on universities without improving the quality or accessibility of education,¡± van den Berg said in a statement. ¡°Universities can address this challenge more quickly, effectively, and in a more targeted way.¡±

Speaking to Times Higher Education, van den Berg said he was optimistic that the government would accept the terms. ¡°We do acknowledge that there¡¯s been a very steep increase in international influx over [recent] years and it hasn¡¯t been very clearly directed ¨C we don¡¯t have a steering wheel,¡± he said.

¡°As a sector, we want to take responsibility. We can control internationalisation ourselves. We can guide it in the right direction, and also we can give a tailored approach for different parts of the country because the pressure is highest in universities in the Randstad [the most populous area of the Netherlands, which includes Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht] and lowest in the more regional universities. We can provide that tailored response that legislation cannot do.¡±

While the internationalisation in balance bill has yet to become law, some fear it¡¯s already impacting the Netherlands¡¯ attractiveness. International bachelor¡¯s intake , with overall international enrolment to bachelor¡¯s programmes ¨C around which concern about high levels is concentrated ¨C falling by 6 per cent compared with the previous academic year. The drop rose to 9 per cent among EEA students, and at some institutions it was much higher still: at the University of Groningen, EEA bachelor enrolments fell by 15 per cent, while at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam they dropped by 23.5 per cent.

Existing measures taken by universities to restrict international enrolment ¨C limiting overseas recruitment activities to disciplines with shortages, for instance ¨C are likely to have played a role in the falling intake, UNL has said. But a perceived rise in Dutch hostility towards international students following Wilders¡¯ election victory is also a likely contributor.

The publicity around international students in the Netherlands is now ¡°enormously negative¡±, according to Peter Birdsall, president of Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences, while the Tilburg spokesperson said the Internationalisation in Balance bill ¡°has created a negative sentiment from The Hague around international students and staff. It is painful to see that they do not always feel welcome any more.¡±

KNAW¡¯s Dogterom fears the Netherlands¡¯ ¡°very strong international reputation¡± as a research powerhouse is at stake if funding cuts and restrictions on immigration continue.

¡°We¡¯re doing really well, for example, in the Horizon Europe grant schemes, because we are a very internationally oriented science system, with a lot of international talent here, a lot of collaboration across the world,¡± she said. ¡°And if you lose that reputation, it will hurt us long term. That¡¯s maybe my biggest worry.¡±

To UNL¡¯s van den Berg, the government¡¯s apparent hostility towards higher education and research is ¡°inexplicable¡± since knowledge is the Netherlands¡¯ ¡°key resource¡±.

¡°We don¡¯t have a big manufacturing sector,¡± he said. ¡°We don¡¯t have many natural resources, as some other countries have. So if we want to be successful, if we want to keep our prosperity and our safety, we really rely on our knowledge sector.

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¡°You cannot strengthen a country¡¯s future by weakening its universities.¡±