Dutch universities write to prime minister: We can contribute to stimulating the economy
23 Feb 2009
“Universities can make a big contribution to keeping the knowledge sector in shape and consequently stimulating the economic health of the Netherlands”, says Sijbolt Noorda, chairman of the Association of Universities in the Netherlands.
Universities have identified three ways of doing this: holding on to talent, strengthening the knowledge-based economy in a sustainable and selective way and speeding up investments that have been determined to be useful and necessary. They have stated this in a letter to the prime minister.
Holding on to talent
Knowledge-intensive companies have to let go of many researchers in the current economic climate. Universities, the natural environment of these researchers, could temporarily increase their intake capacity through public-private cooperation. When the economy has started recovering, researchers can go back to working in the business sector.
This way, talent can be retained while facilitating cooperation between knowledge institutions and businesses and strengthening open innovation. Researchers could also be offered education and training at the universities, in the form of transfer programmes, postgraduate education, work-study programmes or PhD programmes.
Speeding up large building investments
Universities have planned investments for 2009 that have been determined to be useful and necessary. Speeding up these accommodation investments will bring in between 2 to 2.5 billion euros in spending, according to an initial estimate by the universities. This accelerated investment - with a positive effect for the building sector and for the economy as a whole - does require a flexible funding arrangement.
Sustainable and selective strengthening of knowledge-based economy
Another attractive and efficient angle for strengthening the Dutch knowledge-based economy is the effective utilization of European funds. The Netherlands traditionally performs well in European research competition. The lack of required means of authorization at institutional level sometimes has a negative impact, unlike in other countries, where this is supported by the government.