Ombuds Officer Students

You can address complaints about the incorrect application of laws and regulations, about the organisation, the education or the behaviour of a staff member. But your complaint can also be about the organisation or accessibility of university facilities.

The Ombuds Officer Students provides information on relevant regulations and procedures and tells you what your rights, obligations and options are to resolve your problem. For example:

• You feel you have been treated unreasonably by the faculty or short-changed in your rights as a student (student statute);
• One of your lecturers is unreachable or a thesis supervisor is unavailable.

Any UU student can turn to the Ombuds Officer Students. Even if you have finished your studies as a student, you can submit a complaint to the Ombuds Officer Students. The only conditions are that the incident took place during the time you were a student at UU, and that your complaint concerns events that took place less than one year ago.

An interview with the Ombuds Officer Students is confidential: there is a duty of confidentiality. Together with you, the Ombuds Officer Students will discuss how the problem can be solved. This could be by:

• informing;
• referring;
• advising;
• mediating;
• formal investigation and report.

The Ombuds Officer Students provides information on relevant regulations, procedures and what your rights, obligations and options are. In addition, help can be given in analysing problems. If another body can solve the problem, the Ombuds Officer Students refers you on, for example to a complaints coordinator or confidential advisor.

The Student Ombuds Officer may contact the person or body concerned as part of the adversarial process, and only with your permission. Only those directly involved will be informed of the nature of the problem or complaint. Most complaints/problems can be resolved through ombudsperson mediation.

If mediation is not (or no longer) possible or has not produced a result, a formal investigation can be initiated. You can ask the Ombuds Officer Students for this. In this case, the complaint will always be put in writing. The Ombuds Officer Students has a number of powers during the investigation. For instance, information can be requested from third parties, experts can be called in and the situation can be examined on the spot. In such a case, the Ombuds Officer Students will inform the body or person to whom the complaint relates. In all cases, the Ombuds Officer Students hears the parties involved. Facts and circumstances are then stated as accurately as possible. The complaint is declared founded, partially founded or unfounded by the Ombuds Officer Students. This ruling may be accompanied by a recommendation to the person involved, the Faculty Board or the Executive Board. Rulings are included in the annual report, the identity of the individuals is not disclosed.

For more information, check the protocol for the ombudsperson students.