Archived

The University of Amsterdam (UvA) announced that it will stop supporting a student exchange with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The Dutch university also said it will also ensure that it will not enter into collaborative projects with Hungarian institutions under various sanctions by the European Union. At the same time, the UvA also said Thursday it will re-examine its efforts to provide safeguards for doctoral students from China who could potentially be subjected to political pressure by the Chinese government and organizations working on behalf of the Chinese state.

The UvA’s Executive Board said it will follow the advice it commissioned from the Advisory Committee on Collaboration with Third Parties. This was one of the concessions the UvA gave to demonstrators who primarily pressured the university to stop projects with Israel.

[…]

Further, the advice also called on the university to end its arrangements with Hungarian institutions that are blocked from participation in the Erasmus and HorizonEurope programs. The UvA specifically mentioned the University of Pannonia, which is mainly located in Veszprém, and HU-rizon, a Hungarian government international research program with funding equivalent to about 20 million euros.

[…]

The university also took note of concerns about PhD students from the China Scholarship Council, or CSC. Media outlets in the Netherlands have been reporting for several years that students from these programs can find themselves pushed into a difficult position based on the pledges of political support they are required to sign before getting approval and funding from the CSC.

[…]

“At the moment, these three specific collaborations have problematic aspects, which the assessment committee has pointed out to us. That is why we will not be continuing them in their current form for the time being,” said the university rector, Peter-Paul Verbeek.

[…]