No. We explicitly have a policy of assessing each project individually based on the new guidelines. The guidelines are ‘country-neutral’ and contain ethical criteria on the basis of which each assessment takes place. The level of the evaluation depends on the form of the collaboration and can take place at the level of a research group, programme, faculty or institution. The advice is based on the current situation in the context of a research group, programme, faculty or institution. That is why it is possible that we will restart collaborations, in some cases, in the future because the situation has changed. Assessments based on the guidelines therefore only apply to a collaboration in the situation that pertains at that time.

Obligations that the UvA has already entered into will be fulfilled in consultation with the counterparts involved. Exchange students or PhDs who are currently still studying or conducting research at the UvA based on previously applicable agreements can complete these activities.

These collaborations will be continued because the UvA has opted for a case-by-case approach: each individual project will examined separately when there is cause for a request for an advice.

The advice on the student exchange with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and on the PhD scholarships via the China Scholarship Council make it clear that these collaborations cannot continue in their current form at this time. Academic freedom comes with academic responsibility: that also means the responsibility to continue to examine possibilities, including those allowing young people to make their own choices within the international academic world. The Board therefore attaches great importance to continuing discussions with these long-term partners, to see whether cooperation under stricter conditions based on the recommendations in the committee's advice might be possible in the future.

Two cooperation agreements, with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and with the China Scholarship Council, expired in 2024. Programmes plan student exchanges in advance and preparing PhD research takes time. Clarity is needed. The third case concerns potential collaboration with institutions within the framework of Hungarian programmes that were excluded from participation in Erasmus and HorizonEurope by the EU at the end of 2022, and which are therefore now looking for opportunities to give shape to collaboration in the context of Pannonia and HU-rizon. In September 2024, the Executive Board asked the permanent Advisory Committee on Collaboration with Third Parties to provide accelerated advice on these three collaborations in parallel with the development of the new guidelines for external cooperation.

The Executive Board and the academic community of the UvA have been working together since May last year on expanding the existing guidelines, including through broad consultations within various levels of the UvA. The guidelines were submitted in concept to the central participation body at the end of December on the basis of their statutory right to advise. Based on the forthcoming advice from the participation body, the feedback from various university committees and the decisions in the first three cases, the new guidelines will be finalised and adopted in the coming period. Despite the urgency of the issue, care takes precedence over speed in this process, because decisions on academic collaborations are fundamental and have a big impact. Read more about the development of the guidelines and the assessment framework here.

The final concept of the guidelines is ready. That concept was created with broad input from the UvA community. The committee used the concept and the responses to it to assess these first three cases. This was done because these cases could not wait any longer. Academics and students need to know where they stand. The Board did not want to make a decision on the expired agreements without advice from the permanent advisory committee.

No, researchers can submit proposals for proposed international collaborations, including with partners in Israel, to the advisory committee with a request for advice on those specific collaborations.

Only the advice on these three urgent cases will be made public. Any other advice from the committee is intended for internal use only – this is an independent committee of experts, who must be able to discuss these topics in confidence. In order to protect the committee members, prevent the discussions from being influenced, and protect the privacy of those involved in the research or education projects being discussed, the committee’s advice will remain internal. As we have seen over the past year, these are very sensitive issues. Moreover, in some cases mentioning and discussing names is unavoidable. Whether the committee can draw up and publish annual reports with overviews of submitted and processed requests for advice is currently being examined. The annual reports will then include information about the partners and themes involved in the collaborations.

The task of the permanent Advisory Committee on Collaboration with Third Parties was and is to assess and advise on collaborations: throughout the year, the committee handles regular requests for advice. So: yes, it is true that four regular reports were recently issued. These concerned requests for advice on faculty research collaborations with other international partner institutions and private organisations. They did not concern projects from the list of eight projects that the UvA shared in May 2024.

These four reports were handled in the regular manner. This means that the dean of the faculty concerned receives the advice and a decision is taken at faculty level on the possible participation in the collaboration. Regular reports are only intended for internal use, partly because of potentially sensitive information about people, finances and/or research ideas. That is why the Committee and the Board will not share any further information about these four reports.

The Committee is currently investigating whether it can draw up and publish annual reports with overviews of submitted and processed requests for advice. The annual reports would then include information about the partners and themes of (possible) collaborations.