UU welcomes coalition agreement’s direction on internationalisation

“The Dutch universities have repeatedly spoken out about the measures in the field of internationalisation,” said Hans Brug, President of the Executive Board of Utrecht University. “It is good to see that the coalition agreement now opts for a future-oriented and workable approach to international talent, international education, and science. This is of great importance for the Netherlands, for Dutch universities, and for our role and position in Europe and the world.”

“We realise that the past period has been particularly uncertain for colleagues and students involved in the English-language Bachelor’s programme in Economics & Business Economics. In December, they were informed that the programme would eventually be offered exclusively in Dutch as a result of the self-regulation agreements, under which Dutch universities made binding arrangements on international enrolment and the language of instruction. My colleagues in the Executive Board members and I are very pleased that the English-language Bachelor’s programme no longer has to be phased out. I hope that a sense of relief also prevails among colleagues at the School of Law, Economics and Governance (REBO), although I understand that this does not undo the impact of the unrest of the past six weeks. The Executive Board looks forward to resuming discussions with colleagues from the programme next week.”

Factual text in the coalition agreement on internationalisation

• Universities will be given more opportunities to attract top international talent and retain their own talent.
• We will scrap the Language Assessment for Non-Dutch Education (in Dutch: Toets Anderstalig Onderwijs or TAO) for new programmes and maintain the current foreign language provision.
• In order to keep control of the influx of international students, we will simultaneously make binding administrative agreements with educational institutions about the capacity of foreign-language programmes and regional capacity, with a numerus clausus for English-language bachelor's programmes where necessary.
• With the Internationalisation in Balance Act (In Dutch: Wet Internationalisering in Balans or WIB), in addition to these agreements, we will establish a numerus clausus for non-EEA students and the option of an emergency numerus clausus in the event of unexpectedly high enrolment numbers.

Utrecht University is currently reviewing the full coalition agreement to determine what other measures may affect UU, its students, and/or its staff. Further information will be shared as soon as it becomes available.