This is noteworthy because, early last year, Dutch universities collectively agreed – under the umbrella organisation Universities of the Netherlands (UNL) – to largely stop international student recruitment. This decision was in line with the 2022 administrative agreement between higher education institutions and then-Minister of Education Dijkgraaf in which institutions pledged to exercise great restraint in recruiting international students, in light of the government’s intention to curb the internationalisation of Dutch higher education.
However, according to UM President Rianne Letschert, the current Minister of Education, Bruins, “broke” this agreement by scrapping parts of it, including starter and incentive grants for researchers. “As far as we’re concerned, the agreement no longer exists.” As a result, UM has resumed international recruitment, though Letschert stresses that the university remains primarily focused on attracting students from within the Netherlands.
Online channels
Whether national or international, recruitment efforts are needed for the programmes mentioned above – all either recently established or set to launch next year – to reach a “healthy” number of students. That is why, since the start of this year, UM has been promoting these programmes “in the Euregion, mainly through online channels. We’re not attending large fairs outside the Netherlands, but we are, for example, visiting schools in Belgium and Germany”. Letschert also highlights the need for recruitment in light of the sharp decline in international student numbers. “We must be careful not to let these numbers drop much further.”
But does this mean UM is violating its agreements with other universities in UNL? Not according to the umbrella organisation itself. When asked, UNL stated that UM is simply sharing information “a bit more widely” about degree programmes “related to sectors experiencing labour shortages”.
Postscript May 6: A week after publication of this article, and after Parliamentary questions had been raised, Maastricht University's spokesperson pointed out to Observant in an e-mail that Sustainable Bioscience is not yet being recruited at all: the approval process for that program is still ongoing. This email was inadvertently overlooked by the editors.