The University of Amsterdam (UvA) will not continue two programs for the exchange of students with Israel and China in its current form. The university wants guarantees that academic freedom and human rights will not be compromised in the exchange. Also, no exchange will take place with Hungarian institutions that now fall under EU sanctions.
The UvA board announced this on Thursday, in response to a advice from a committee that assesses cooperation with third parties. The programs involved have been tacitly extended so far.
It is about the annual exchange of about ten students with Hebrew University in Jerusalem and about Chinese PhD students who come to Amsterdam via the China Scholarship Council (CSC), which is part of the Chinese Ministry of Education,
At Hebrew University, the advisory committee signals risks for violation of human rights and academic freedom. The university also provides training for the Israeli army. According to the board, ‘risk -making measures’ are required for resumption. What that can be, still has to be worked out. “I’m not going to improvise about that now,” said UvA rector Peter-Paul Verbeek on Thursday in an explanation of the measures. The agreement with the Israeli university ran until August 2024.
In practice, suspending the contacts for students will not yet make up, exchange with Israel has been stopping since the start of the Gaza War in October 2023 due to a negative travel advice from Foreign Affairs.
We do not want our students to be involved in unethical matters
Protest
The University of Amsterdam has been working for some time on a assessment framework for cooperation with ‘sensitive’ parties, such as the fossil industry. This was accelerated by severe protests and actions from students and teachers after the start of the Gaza War. They demanded the breaking of the academic ties with Israel.
Rector Verbeek explicitly does not speak of ‘sanctions’. He says: “It is not our job to boycott a country or put pressure on a government. We do not want our students to be involved in unethical matters. To prevent that, we take these measures. “
The Executive Board comes with a decision about these three programs because they concern the entire university. About four faculty research projects in which Israeli institutions also participate, it has been advised separately to the deans involved. These advice remain confidential, according to Verbeek, because it concerns research data. According to the UvA, the scope is that they can continue if ‘mitigating’ adjustments are made.
Remarkably strict is the advice on demands on the arrival of Chinese PhD students, now a few dozen. From now on, each individual application should be submitted to the university advisory committee to test it against the rules for cooperation.
In the exchange of PhD students with China, according to the advisory committee, there are risks for “academic freedom, knowledge safety, data rivacy and the safety of candidates”. Those risks were already signaled by Minister Dijkgraaf (Education and Sciences) in the previous cabinet. There were also messages about intimidation of Chinese students abroad.
EU sanctions
Finally, the Amsterdam University confirms that it will not exchange students with two Hungarian institutions that hope to bypass the EU sanctions against the country. The academic freedom in Hungary has been under pressure for years.
A few other Dutch universities were also the scene of anti-Israeli protests last year, which forced the board to revise the ties with that country. According to activists, the Israeli university world is closely interpreted with the oppression of Palestinians and with the war violence in Gaza.
In January, the University of Tilburg announced that it would not suspend the ties with Israel, in spite of the advice of a committee, but to first want to enter into a conversation with the Israeli partners. New protests rose against that decision. According to Rector Verbeek, the views of the UvA and Tilburg are ‘close together’. “But we now first want to see for ourselves what conditions we attach to renewal of these programs.”
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