‘We will continue to protest,’ Dean De Bont assures after cuts in start-up grants

Antoinette de Bont, dean of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, is not amused by the new measures taken by the Schoof cabinet to scrap the start-up and incentive grants. And the measures will take effect as early as January 1 of next year, which only adds to the chagrin.

‘This is just bad governance.’ Anger, amazement and indignation compete for precedence when Antoinette de Bont reacts to the Schoof cabinet’s austerity plans. When the new measures were announced, even before Prinsjesdag, the faculty put all start-up and incentive grants on hold: ‘I can’t spend resources I don’t have.’

‘All the assistant professors we appointed a year and a half ago have all received the signal from me: you will receive this starter grant. And now, suddenly, we have to say that they don’t get that money anymore. Not because we don’t want to, but because the ministers new budget cuts,’ says De Bont. ‘Our people have been working on good proposals for months, and it looks like it’s all for nothing.’

Everything stops at once

‘The measure to stop the start-up and incentive grants will take effect on 1 January, which is already three months away,’ De Bont continues. ‘These were structural agreements, and I could have spread those resources, so that the assistant professors who are starting now could also get a share. But now it stops all at once. We do not accept that. We can’t make proper agreements like that, can we?’

Due to the freezing of the grants, the recruitment for new PhD candidates has been stopped immediately and no new plans will be assessed. ‘But the PhD students who already have a contract,’ De Bont assures, ‘can trust that we are a very decent university.’

We keep protesting

‘And of course we will continue to protest. That’s not how you treat each other, is it? The minister is responsible for this,’ says De Bont. ‘I’m pissed, too,’ De Bont echoes the words of Rector Magnificus Wim van de Donk at the opening of the academic year.

The government wants to increase ’the social impact of knowledge from research’, according to the government program, which Schoof announced on Prinsjesdag. ‘But we are already doing that and we will continue to do so, within the Academic Collaborative Centers,’ says De Bont. In the Academic Collaborative Centers, fundamental research is linked to practical questions with a major societal impact.

‘It’s important to know that we’re going to continue with unfettered research. And we will defend that tooth and nail.’ Tilburg University remains focused on new and innovative research. This has great social relevance, according to De Bont. ‘Innovation is not just a new chip or a new medicine. Social innovation is about an inclusive labor market and the digitalization of healthcare.’ That is also important, De Bont stresses out.

_Advertentie.