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Independent journalism about VU Amsterdam | Since 1953
17 April 2026
European researchers can apply to the European Research Council (ERC) for research grants. Competition is intense, yet over the past two decades the Netherlands has secured nearly ten percent of the total funding awarded – around €3 billion euros.
Almost eighteen percent of the Netherlands’ applications are approved, the highest figure among EU member states. A successful application can earn an individual researcher between 1.5 and 2.5 million euros in funding.
However, not all countries are equally successful. Countries in Central and Eastern Europe in particular secure relatively few grants. This creates a vicious circle, with successful countries accumulating experience and continuing to attract funding, while others struggle to break in.
A missed opportunity, says Polish scientist Leszek Kaczmarek, chair of the ERC working group that promotes broader European participation. “We’re losing an enormous amount of talent”, he explains in a phone interview. “This means Europe as a whole misses out on discoveries, insights and technologies.”
The trailing group comprises fifteen EU countries. Together, they represent about a quarter of the EU population. These countries have made modest gains, the ERC reports in a new study, though they continue to lag behind the rest.
In countries such as Greece, the Czech Republic and Poland the situation has improved. In recent years, the success rate in these three countries has been between eight and ten percent. Between 2007 and 2011, this was three percent or less, according to ERC figures going back to 2007.
Even so, these fifteen countries continue to secure relatively few grants. Over the past five years, the Netherlands pulled in twice as many as all of them combined. “It’s encouraging that success rates are increasing, but the number of applications remains low”, says Kaczmarek. “Many researchers in these countries don’t even bother to apply, convinced their chances are slim.”
According to the ERC report, the low success rates are mainly due to the research climate: these countries simply offer fewer opportunities for scientists. They receive limited support when preparing grant applications and have fewer international connections to draw on.
Change must therefore primarily come from within the countries themselves, the ERC argues. According to Kaczmarek, the ERC’s greatest strength lies in its soft power: “The ERC can help countries strengthen their academic culture and expand opportunities for top scientific talent.” That, he says, will have greater impact than measures and programmes alone.
Still, some support can help. In 2016, the Research Council launched an exchange programme allowing scientists from Poland or Hungary, for example, to spend a few months working with research teams in countries such as France, Germany or the Netherlands.
The ERC also introduced a mentoring programme in 2021, through which successful researchers offer advice and training in preparing grant applications. And in 2025, the ERC invested 1.5 million euros in strengthening national contact points, enabling researchers to receive guidance and support in their own countries.
Kaczmarek also warns of possible ‘postcode bias’: where you come from may influence your chances of obtaining a grant. This may influence reviewers unconsciously, underlining the need to make them aware of this risk.
Kaczmarek compares it to gender inequality in research. “For years, women were much less successful in applying for research grants”, he says. “Things began to improve only after the scientific community acknowledged the issue and recognised the role of unconscious bias in grant decisions.”
“That’s not only unethical, but also a tremendous shame”, he adds. “We wasted talent by not giving women the opportunity to fulfil their full potential. The same now applies to researchers from these fifteen countries.”
The ERC hopes that more ‘happy islands’, where the success of a few researchers inspires others to try their luck, will eventually emerge in the trailing countries. It’s important to support these islands, says Kaczmarek: “Talent must be nurtured.”
No obvious two-way race this time. Last year, the left-wing ChangeVU and right-wing Vrijmoedige Studentenpartij (VSP) went head to head. The only independent candidate didn’t get enough votes for a seat. VSP secured 2 seats and ChangeVU 9. This year VSP is not running (see box below), and two new parties have entered the arena.
One of those parties is ConsensusVU, founded by former student council chair Anne Bruggink and former vice-chair Oskar Siri, who also stepped down. In February, they left the University Student Council (USR) because the fallout from the misconduct of two VSP members had created what they considered an unworkable situation within the council. They also left their party ChangeVU, where fellow members had called them ‘puppets of the Executive Board’. “Trust has been irreparably damaged,” Bruggink said at the time.
At the end of March, just before the usual campaign period, Bruggink and Siri launched their own party: ConsensusVU, with which they say they want to return the participational body to its original purpose. “We want to shift the focus from differences to common ground. From fighting each other to fighting a problem together.” ‘End the duel,’ they write on their Instagram. According to Bruggink, by this they mainly mean the duel between ChangeVU and VSP. “An atmosphere has emerged of wanting to defeat the other party. In our ideal scenario, there would be no parties at all, just individual candidates running on behalf of students. So in a way it’s strange that we’ve now started a party – it’s exactly what we want to move away from.”
According to Bruggink, the participational body has a legal duty to represent students, but she says that duty was compromised by council members fighting each other. As an example, she cites a discussion within the USR about whether or not to post an Instagram message about the Gaza flotilla. When she wanted to hold off until they could discuss it in person, other members concluded, according to her, that she was then complicit in genocide. “I understand that emotions can run high, but you have to be able to keep talking to each other about these kinds of things.”
Depolarisation is therefore a major pillar for the party. But isn’t that also a tactic to avoid difficult topics? “No, you’re allowed to hold a strong opinion and stand behind it, but verbal violence, intimidation and bullying are unacceptable. The conversation has to take place in the middle – where you both move towards each other.”
Isn’t that a difficult theme to campaign on? Most VU students won’t be aware of, or affected by, the atmosphere inside the student council, and may be more receptive to concrete plans for the campus. “That’s why our candidates determine their own main points. And we strongly advise them to be respectful in doing so.” That’s also why they deliberately started small and see this as a ‘pilot year’. No online recruitment campaign, but a handful of people they approached personally to stand as candidates. One of them is now on the list. Bruggink isn’t worried that candidates will come up with controversial points the party can’t get behind. “Otherwise they’d just run independently.”
Overarching themes from ConsensusVU are, in any case, depolarisation, academic freedom, social safety and accessibility. “Students sometimes don’t even dare to ask a question in a seminar anymore, because they can be judged for it. I don’t think everything should be sayable – certainly not when it hurts people. But there does have to be a grey area in which you can form your opinion.”
On their Instagram, VU Student Coalition highlights the themes that matter to them. They don’t yet have a party programme. The party has been active for several years at Erasmus University Rotterdam and Utrecht University, but the VU chapter has only existed since this year. Their wishes are clear: a socially safe campus that is sustainable, affordable and inclusive, with transparent decision-making, accessible mental health support and good career guidance for students.
Exactly what all of that looks like in concrete terms can’t immediately be read on their Instagram. According to lead candidate and bachelor’s student Esraa Aboelkasem, that’s mainly a matter of keeping the Instagram updated. The campaign period coincided with exam week – there wasn’t always time for everything right away. But according to Aboelkasem they have been busy with “preparations” since October: shaping their substantive themes and priorities and “actively listening” to various student perspectives on campus – through student associations, for example.
In a conversation on campus, she explains the party’s wishes: to make the campus affordable for everyone, the VU canteen should be able to offer students a meal for 2 or 3 euros, and printing costs need to come down. According to Aboelkasem, some lecturers ask their students to bring printed papers to class, to prevent them from using AI. That way, it remains a laptop-free zone. “But if you have to print a number of papers every week, those costs can really add up.”
There is also ground to be gained, according to Aboelkasem, when it comes to supporting students’ mental wellbeing. On top of worries about finding housing and declining purchasing power, students are also affected by geopolitical tensions, she says. “To make support inclusive, it also has to be culturally sensitive and take the student’s background and circumstances into account. A bit more tailored support for students with an Iranian background, for example, or for students belonging to the Palestinian community. But also for neurodivergent students or first-generation students.”
About that last group, Aboelkasem often hears that they experience the introduction week as enjoyable, but that questions about practical matters remain unanswered. “Things like how to register for a course, what the deadline for that is, how to add the timetable to your own calendar.” Aboelkasem is a first-generation student herself and, according to her, had a large network of friends and fellow students who could help her with questions, “but not everyone has that. First-generation students also experience a lot of pressure: you’re your parents’ pride and you want to do well – there needs to be more support for that.”
That is also a group VU Student Coalition wants to stand up for in the participational body. “There are many unheard students from the black community, first-generation students, neurodivergent students.” Has there been too little attention for that group? “I don’t want to point fingers, but over the past year, with everything that has played out at VU, the current parties have shown what they stand for. It may have been a difficult situation, but it’s time for a different voice within the USR.” But is that group of unheard students actually the group that turns out to vote? “Unfortunately not, but by taking part now we hope for a higher turnout. We’re going on TikTok, Instagram videos are on the way, we approach people on campus. So far we’ve only had positive reactions.”
Familiar face ChangeVU – founded in 2023 by Vincent Mesrine after he split off from SRVU – is running again this year and campaigning hard. Board member and former USR member Simon Westhoff was briefly worried that, after VSP decided not to run, they would be the only party taking part. “That would have been a nightmare scenario – you want there to be something to choose from.”
With VSP staying away from the elections, Westhoff does expect a less “hostile atmosphere”. He describes relations with ConsensusVU and VU Student Coalition as friendly. At the same time, he thinks it’s a shame that the voice of more conservative or religious students disappears from the council as a result. “There should be room for that voice on campus. But maybe this is an opportunity to bring the attention back to the local issues it should be about: alternative exam venues, canteen prices. Not rainbow flags and the Pride Library.”
One of the first things the party wants to tackle is the underuse of space at VU – citing as an example a former study area on the second floor of the main building that has been converted into an exam hall and therefore stands empty “98 percent of the time”. “I really find it unacceptable that there is so little space at the university that is being underused.”
Another concern is what Westhoff calls ‘securitisation’. According to him, there is less and less room for students to organise themselves organically, in a “horizontal way”, through initiatives and protests. “Student and Educational Affairs has taken over the management of the Studentendok from the student union, for example, and there is more and more security present at VU. Social safety is also very important – but I do have the feeling that students are being viewed with more and more suspicion. Activism and extremism should not be seen as the same thing.”
On the other points they want to champion – student wellbeing, accessibility, safety – there seems to be overlap with the other two parties. Will ChangeVU’s take on them look any different? “Not necessarily. What ConsensusVU stands for isn’t entirely clear to me yet. But I think we agree with VU Student Coalition on 99 percent of things.” So is there less at stake? “You still want to win as a party, but it’s a plus for everyone that there are no far-right people on the list. Still, we have to remain vigilant.”
ChangeVU is looking forward to working with both parties – this year for the first time as the oldest party in the elections. “Maybe we should change our name to EstablishmentVU,” Westhoff laughs. Whether their previous experience can be an advantage in the elections is hard to say, he thinks. “We’ve become good at creative campaigning and we have people who know how student elections work. But people also often enjoy voting for something new.”
Vrijmoedige Studentenpartij
VSP is not taking part in this year’s elections, citing a climate of ‘intimidation, threats, demonisation and organised obstruction’. Asked whether they would have been allowed to run if they had wanted to, a VU spokesperson says that any student enrolled at VU who pays tuition fees and appears in the electoral register as of the reference date of 1 February can stand as a candidate for the USC.
“Institutions like this shouldn’t exist.” As he makes coffee among unwashed glasses, empty beer bottles and plastic wrappers in a gloomy kitchen of The Social Hub, master’s student Baran Luis Pasaoglu reflects on the hotel he’s been staying in these last months. You can tell eleven other students use the space. A cupboard door has come off its hinges, and a long board that was once fitted between the cabinets and the floor lies flat at his feet.
Pasaoglu moved into one of the ‘extended stay’ rooms at the hotel’s Wibautstraat location last September to start his American Studies master’s at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). It costs him around 2,000 euros a month and is far from what he had hoped for when choosing to study in Amsterdam after finishing his bachelor’s in Turkey. His housing search got delayed because he was waiting for a decision from other universities he applied to. He knew rent wouldn’t be cheap because of the housing crisis, and yet he still hoped to find a studio for under 1,500 euros. He started looking in July, and after a week of little success, he was forced to lower his expectations.
He had heard about The Social Hub from a friend and was lucky enough to instantly find an available room on the hotel’s website. Although the hotel does offer rooms cheaper than his, all of those were already taken. Still, he was glad for the search to be over. “It was really a relief”, he says.
Pasaoglu’s first impression of his room was that it was small. But he wasn’t one to complain. He says he lived in smaller spaces before, and after seeing other rooms on his floor he was glad he didn’t end up with a cheaper option, which he says would be too small, even for him.
He became friends with students he shared the kitchen with. Most of them ended up at the hotel in similar circumstances to his. “I think no one wanted to be here in the first place”, he says, adding that some of them are still looking for housing alternatives now.
Student hotels like The Social Hub have been a subject of controversy for the past couple of years. De Landelijke Studentenvakbond (Dutch Student Union) advises students not to choose The Social Hub because of its “exorbitant prices” and limited tenancy rights compared to regular student housing.
In the meantime, the housing crisis in Amsterdam deepens every year, as construction of new complexes struggles to catch up with private landlords selling off their student housing stock. This means that incoming students often go for any accommodation they can find, including student hotels. Despite being hotels, the establishments offer little flexibility when it comes to ending the contract prematurely, and while their amenities are enjoyable, it seems like most students wouldn’t choose them if they had more options.
“I’m just gonna take whatever”, Briana Cotârlan thought to herself in July 2023, a month before she was set to move out of Romania and begin her Computer Science degree at VU. She was waiting for a website to open that listed accommodations reserved for the university’s incoming international students.
Because she didn’t pay VU’s housing fee in time, she couldn’t take part in earlier opportunities to book a room. Stories of people who failed to find housing and gave up their studies in the Netherlands because of it had been haunting Cotârlan for months. Now, it was her last chance to get a room through the university’s housing programme – if she didn’t get it, she considered her odds of finding a place grim.
When the housing platform went online, the website crashed. For five nerve-racking minutes, Cotârlan couldn’t log in. When she finally did, only a couple of rooms were left. One of them caught her eye – for 1,087 euros a month, she would get a hotel room with access to a shared kitchen.
It was at The Social Hub in Amsterdam West, a student hotel she had heard of before. This late into the housing process, the other available rooms were just as expensive as the hotel. It was never her first choice, but she liked the fact it had a reception and security. So she decided to do it.
Cotârlan didn’t like the high price of the accommodation but started missing some of the benefits that came with it when she moved out a year later. Being used to monthly room cleaning service, she admits it was a “reality check” when maintenance became her own responsibility.
She appreciated the sense of safety the hotel’s security had provided, and the reception staff, ready to help day and night. The discounts she got at a café on the hotel’s ground floor, the access to a gym at no extra cost, rental bikes free to use – it all sweetened the deal.
Similarly to Pasaoglu, she had no choice but to choose the more expensive room. But upon seeing other people’s rooms, which can get as small as 14 square metres, she was happy with where she was.
He witnessed a rat helping itself to a bowl of cookies on the reception counter
Pasaoglu had access to the same amenities as Cotârlan did, which he does appreciate. But he doesn’t think they justify how high the rent is, especially considering the hotel’s shortcomings. The kitchen needs fixing, which the hotel ignores, despite his requests. The internet is slow. Rats visit the lobby and common study area – he witnessed one helping itself to a bowl of cookies on the reception counter. It all makes the price hard to accept for him.
Student hotels can, however, be affordable, as proven by Hotel Casa, which currently charges 605 euros a month for its long-stay student rooms. Annejet Vreeburg, a Journalism master’s student at VU who lived there for over a year starting in 2020, says that period was a great start to living on her own. She chose it over regular student housing, taking advantage of the Covid pandemic shortening the hotel’s waitlist. Nowadays, it takes two years to get a room in the same hotel.
What also shows that the hotel is a reasonable choice is that Vreeburg remembers around half of the hotel’s student residents to be Dutch. Students who lived in the Netherlands before going to university tend to end up with better housing than internationals as they have more insight into the market. At The Social Hub, both Pasaoglu and Cotârlan say they encountered almost no Dutch students.
It seems like signing a long-term contract with a student hotel does not come with much freedom. That’s something Hania Frej, a second-year European Studies student at UvA, learned this last year when staying at Hotel Jansen, which also offers long-stay options for students. After a month in a hotel-sized room, which she paid 1700 euros for, she was excited to hear that she could move into an apartment two months earlier than expected. Then she learned that leaving the hotel before the end of her contract would cost her 400 euros, which she says is different from what the hotel had told her when she asked about this upon arrival. According to her, she was told there would be no such fee.
Pasaoglu faced similar issues. His plan was to move out in January, but because of his one-year contract, he had to find a person to take over his room if he wanted to end the contract early. He didn’t find anyone, which was not surprising to him. “I get why most people don’t want to pay 2,000 euros for a room”, he says. He now has to stay at The Social Hub until the end of the contract.
What cheers him up is that soon he is flying out of Amsterdam, leaving the hotel room behind for a couple of nights. “I can’t wait”, he says. “I’m counting the days.”
We’re already well past the halfway point of this year. I could describe it in so many ways, beyond a normal board year.
I genuinely believe that what you meet in life meets you for a reason. For me, this year has been a quiet experiment in capacity: how many ‘roles’ can one person carry while the world feels like it’s shaking a little? Two boards. Two jobs. Honours. Trying to show up for friends. Trying to show up for myself. And still, the question that keeps returning, almost like a chorus, has been: “How do you do so much?”
Passion? Obsession? Probably a mix of both. But if I’m honest, it’s also something simpler: a refusal to let opportunities pass me by just because they look intimidating at first. I see everything I do as puzzle pieces I’m collecting small, imperfect fragments that don’t make sense on their own.
My role in the University Student Council gives me space to arrange those pieces into something that matters beyond me. It’s not just ‘extra activities’. It’s being close to the heartbeat of the university: hearing what students need, translating that into action, and realising how much change can start from one conversation that someone took seriously.
With elections coming up, I wanted this blog to be an honest note to anyone who’s ever wondered whether doing something outside your studies is ‘worth it’. It is, because it changes your relationship with yourself. The University Student Council isn’t just a line on a CV. It’s a training ground for becoming the kind of person who doesn’t wait for permission to contribute.
For me, the council not only means new opportunities, but a whole different world. I will dare to say it’s the best experience you can have in your twenties. What this year taught me is that this experience will shape your whole future: as an individual, as a future worker, as a friend, as who you choose to be when the world tries to shape you differently.
So if you’re reading this and thinking, ‘I could never do all that’, you don’t have to. You just have to start with one step. One small puzzle piece. And then another. Because sometimes the most surprising thing isn’t how much you can do, it’s how much you can become when you finally let yourself try.
Do scientists have the freedom to choose their own research and teaching topics? Are campuses safe places for students and staff? Can academics speak freely, even on sensitive issues?
Each year, the Academic Freedom Index assesses the level of academic freedom in countries around the world, based on questionn aires, input from local experts and other sources. Scores given to the countries range from 0 to 1.
Europe, North America, Oceania and Latin America generally perform well, while countries in Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa tend to score lower. A new report reveals that academic freedom has declined significantly in as many as fifty countries over the past decade.
Topping the latest ranking is the Czech Republic, with a score of 0.98, followed by Estonia with 0.97. Belgium takes third place with 0.95.
Bringing up the rear is Nicaragua, which still scored 0.81 in the 1990s, but since Daniel Ortega became president again in 2007 the country has slipped into dictatorship. According to a UN report, universities in Nicaragua are under tight government control, and critical students and teachers face “physical and psychological violence”.
The Netherlands scores 0.76, which is lower than most other EU countries. Only Greece, Romania and especially Hungary score lower. The Netherlands has lost its long-held position among Europe’s frontrunners.
‘Campus integrity’ is rated relatively low in the Netherlands. Scholars at Risk recorded several incidents in recent years, including police violence during pro-Palestinian protests, as well as vandalism of university buildings by activists. According to the organisation, such incidents hinder open debate and contribute to feelings of unsafety on campuses.
Last year, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) also warned that academic freedom was under pressure in the Netherlands, partly due to the Schoof government’s far-reaching budget cuts and the ‘polarisation and the hardening of public discourse’. The KNAW also noted the Netherlands’ declining score on the Academic Freedom Index.
© HOP, source: Academic Freedom Index.
A high score doesn’t always mean that the country in question offers a safe learning environment in practice. For example, Nigeria scores significantly higher than the Netherlands, even though students and staff there have been repeatedly kidnapped by criminal gangs, often for ransom.
The Academic Freedom Index, after all, primarily considers the extent to which governments interfere with institutions. Issues such as crime and general security aren’t typically included.
The most dramatic decline can be seen in the United States, where academic freedom has plummeted by a whopping fifty percent. Its current score of 0.40 suggests that there is currently less academic freedom in America than there was in the Netherlands during World War II.
© HOP, source: Academic Freedom Index.
President Trump views universities as adversaries and is exerting substantial financial pressure in an attempt to force them to comply. Researchers are forced to adhere to strict guidelines on diversity, equality and inclusion, while lecturers aren’t allowed to teach freely on topics such as racism and gender; at a university in Texas, even texts by Plato were removed from a course reading list.
The report notes that in Hungary, India and Turkey, academic freedom is also increasingly compromised as a result of legislative changes and government interventions. Unlike in the United States, where the decline occurred rapidly, these countries have experienced a more incremental deterioration.
In a reaction to an Instagram post, you called Emergohal an accessibility nightmare. Why is that? “There are so many things that go wrong with Emergohal. Even with Google Maps, it’s very difficult to guide yourself there. If you go by public transportation, there is no footpath there, only a road and a cycle path. When you’re on time and able-bodied, it already poses challenges. But when you’re someone who struggles to get somewhere on time, like a lot of disabled people for many different reasons, that makes it even more challenging.”
“The last time I was there, around a year ago, I was early for once, but there was nowhere to sit down in the waiting areas. So I had to sit down on the floor, which is difficult if you’re a disabled student.”
Tait-Doak is a member of Disability RendezVU, a community for disabled students that emerged from a student panel which meets with the Studying with a Disability department to enact policy change together. They also collaborate with 3D to host a monthly support meeting for disabled students and staff. The group is currently trying to transform into a more general student association like VU Pride, FAM and NDSA.
Is the actual process of taking the exam the same as in any other space? “Taking exams is always a bit chaotic, but Emergohal is a very big space with a lot of fluorescent lights and a lot of activity. That makes it more bewildering. The RAI – where I had an exam before Covid – is similar in size, but not as bad. The accessibility is a bit better and it’s a bit less overwhelming.”
Does VU not offer a solution for people with disabilities? “You can sign up to do your exam in the provision room on campus, but this introduces other complexities. You have to book the room at least two weeks in advance of the exam, which requires a complex form separate from the registration for the course. For someone with a limited capacity, this adds another administrative task on top of all the things they already have to take care of. Being disabled is a full-time job. And if you’re late applying, you can’t use the room.”
Could you confidently say that the Emergohal has resulted in worse grades for you? “Yes, if the form of examination is inaccessible or causes me too much stress or distress, then it does affect my performance.”
You make the case that Emergohal is inaccessible to students with disabilities. Do you think that otherwise, the location is fine? “When we talk about disability and accessibility, we’re not just talking about people who fit cleanly into different categories of being abled or disabled. I am a registered disabled student, but I’ve had a long journey. A lot of students coming here at 17, 18 or their early 20s maybe don’t know they have a disability or undiagnosed illness, but the challenge is still there. When you accommodate disabled people, everybody benefits from it.”
Exam location the TenT has been torn down, reducing the examination capacity on campus. Isn’t that a valid reason to use Emergohal, at least in the short term? “If they’re going to implement a solution to the TenT and the W&N building being demolished, then they need to find accessible solutions: reintroduce the shuttle buses [between the campus and the Emergohal, Ed.]; make it accessible rather than having the students shoulder the challenges. And make it more lenient for students with disabilities to book a low-stimulus room for exams.”
Contested past
The Emergohal was already used for exams in 2002, university historian Ab Flipse says. There was a lot of protest against it, which the rector at the time described as justified. When the TenT opened in 2003, rector Taede Sminia said: “It is part of the VU’s educational culture that you can go to the campus for everything.”
Currently, the Emergohal has been back in use for several years. The university considers it the most suitable option for additional exam capacity, alongside other locations in use such as the VU Sports Centre. “We therefore expect to continue using the Emergohal and will offer support where we can to make the route to it as pleasant as possible for our students”, the Corporate Real Estate and Facilities (FCO) department responds to our question about the future plans for the exam hall. FCO did not receive the interview with Tait-Doak ahead of publication.
The Ghassan Kanafani Library – that’s the official name of the pop-up library in the central hall of the main building, run by students Nuha and Alex. Its name refers to the Palestinian writer who was spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) until he was killed by the Mossad in 1972. On a large white table, decorated with a Palestinian flag lie printed copies of books, pamphlets and stickers. The table is flanked by a small cabinet with dozens of hardcopy books, with titles such as The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine; Landscape of Hope and Despair and The Forgotten Palestinians.
Founder Nuha, a student in Biomedical Sciences, opened the library in October last year with fellow student Alex. Neither student wants their full names in Ad Valvas, as they’ve had bad experiences with previous activism events. “I wanted to do this for a long time, creating a space on campus that is about Palestine. The idea of it being a library comes from my belief that VU is doing a bad job educating people about Palestine. In my studies, for example, Palestine is never mentioned, even though the health situation in Palestine is very relevant to our study programme.”
In contrast, Nuha says she sees the opposite happening. “People push back when Palestine is mentioned. For instance, VU represses the voice of VU for Palestine as an activist group. So we started the library to raise awareness and engage in discussion. Some people want to know more about Gaza, but don’t know where to start.”
So far, the library has gotten plenty of attention. “We have way more visitors than expected, over fifty each day”, says Nuha. “Some people are just curious and know little about Palestine – they want to learn and ask us questions. Others are well-read but want to deepen their knowledge.”
When can people visit the library? “Whenever we’re at VU and have energy and time”, says co-founder Alex. “We have a group chat on WhatsApp for previous visitors, so they’re notified when the library is open”, Nuha adds. “Everyone is welcome to have a chat.”
She thinks the calm environment of the library is appealing, even to people who wouldn’t normally approach others. “Some people are a bit shy to ask protesters questions on campus, for instance during VU for Palestine protests. Those people are more willing to ask someone who is sitting down with books.”
Nuha also noticed that a library is a more fruitful place for open and respectful conversations than a protest, when people have high adrenaline levels. “Someone asked a question about the slogan ‘from the river to the sea’ – a question that, in a different environment, could be felt as an attack on Palestine. However, when we started talking, I noticed it was just a question, so I explained to that person what is meant by the slogan: in the British Mandate era, Palestine existed from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Then came the Zionist ideology, creating a state based on ethnic cleansing and violence, which led to Palestinians having to flee their land and even be killed.”
The library has around 130 books, Nuha says. “We try to get physical copies of the books, but some of them are hard to find in the Netherlands. So we try to print them instead. Generally speaking, the authors wouldn’t mind. Take Ghassan Kanafani for example, the name-giver of our library. Knowing his ideology, he would be more than happy that people read his book without buying it – it’s about the knowledge being shared.”
Nuha calls their library “a small type of activism” for which, in her opinion, they don’t need permission. “I’m a student at VU who is studying here in the main building. Okay, I have many books and I don’t mind talking to people, but in the end I’m just someone who’s studying. Do I need permission for that?”
Security personnel have a different view: according to Nuha, they keep telling her she needs permission. Security took Nuha’s student card multiple times to write down her name and student number. “Meanwhile, the VU board knows we’re here, they know who I am. Board member Marcel Nollen said that as long as it’s peaceful, he’s okay with all types of activism.”
“I imagined Europe to be a lot better connected”, says Rachael Muresan, a Law in Society student who moved from the United States to the Netherlands three years ago. Every summer since coming to Europe, she has travelled across the continent, but has almost never taken an international train. Each time she considered going by rail, she was greeted by extremely long connections, high prices, and serial transfers. Trip by trip, flying became Muresan’s norm.
For a lot of students, short flights are simply more appealing than spending long hours on a train. “That’s a lot of your time, and of your day, and of your life, while you pay not really that much less”, says Dagmara Styszko, a Polish student at Amsterdam University College who regularly chooses to fly home because of the inconvenient and costly train connection between Amsterdam and Warsaw.
Last year, a Greenpeace study revealed that flying is often even less costly than taking the train. This was the case on 54% of the analyzed cross-border routes within Europe. While air travel, on average, produces five times more CO2 per passenger than trains, untaxed aviation fuel and no Value Added Tax (VAT) on international flight tickets allow airlines to keep their prices low. Meanwhile, railway operators often face full VAT along with high energy costs and track access charges.
Styszko flies home and back around five times a year. Most times, she only gets to spend a couple of days at home – in such cases she never considers taking the train. But when heading to Poland for a summer break last year, she and her friend decided to look into travelling by rail for the first time. After doing some research, she started having second thoughts. “The transfer in Berlin is super problematic”, she says. It’s the only transfer on the route, but missing the connection often means having to spend the night in Berlin. In the end, she decided not to risk it and take the plane.
For Pauline Geertman, an Italian Artificial Intelligence student, taking a train back home to Milan was never an option even though it would likely cost her less than flying, since the flight costs her around 250 euros both ways. Geertman usually doesn’t mind taking a long trip, although she wouldn’t want to lose time she could spend with her family on travel. But the main reason behind her choice to fly is the uncertainty of making the transfers, since there are many on the route. “It’s a logistical nightmare”, she says. “Everything has to piece together.”
The fear of missing a connection on a long train journey is something Gereon Tho Pesch and Lorenzo Freire-Stella often notice in students who opt to fly. Tho Pesch and Freire-Stella are part of ErasmusbyTrain, an NGO with the goal of helping more students travel by train to their Erasmus exchange destinations. While the organisation is advocating for the EU to fund such tickets, the cost benefits are far from being the only factor pushing students to fly.
“Many people haven’t planned such a [train] journey in their past”, says Tho Pesch, adding that many students consider flying as “the easy option”. He says that, just like Styszko and Geertman, many are scared of having to transfer between trains, especially when they are carrying a lot of luggage.
There is also the element of unfamiliarity. “All airports work the same”, says Tho Pesch. “You very clearly know where to go.” Meanwhile, train stations are more likely to differ in each country, which is something that makes the transfer more unpredictable. “The [booking] site can think you have a 10-minute layover, but then one track is on one side of the station, and the other one is a 10-minute walk away while I don’t know where the tracks are”, says Muresan.
For some, the problems start before the journey even begins. Last year, a YouGov poll commissioned by Transport & Environment revealed that two-thirds of long-distance rail passengers have at some point been discouraged from taking the train by fragmented and unintuitive booking systems.
Strikingly, a report by the European Commission found that the youngest age group (15-24 years old) experiences the most issues when booking connections, which requires buying tickets from at least two different operators. Freire-Stella says that this is because the ticketing systems “are very poorly maintained”, confusing young travellers who are used to intuitive digital tools.
Incompatible booking systems also affect the cost of travel. A lot of people are unlikely to find the best price for their tickets, because they choose the first option they find. “If you stay on the surface level, you may face the most expensive tickets”, says Freire-Stella, explaining that there are many tricks you can use when booking with multiple operators to pay the smallest price possible.
The booking hurdles don’t apply to flying. Sites like Skyscanner make it easy for anyone to find the cheapest flight and book the tickets in one place. Tho Pesch is convinced an NGO like ErasmusbyTrain wouldn’t exist if a system like Skyscanner was available for rail travel.
It is most likely that pan-European train travel will eventually get easier. The booking systems are soon to be improved with the long-delayed Single Ticketing Regulation that will let passengers buy cross-border tickets in one system. Travel times and the number of transfers will decrease with the construction of a high-speed train network, which EU plans on completing by 2040. But is there a way to cut our flying emissions right now?
“You need to just give people the right incentives to do the right thing”, says Tho Pesch. He and Freire-Stella say that students shouldn’t be shamed for flying, but rather “nudged” in the right direction and helped with booking their train journey.
Tho Pesch hopes that when students complete their first journey, they will realize that “it’s actually a good time.” Trying long-distance trains may leave students with more than just a sustainable means of transport. Booking tickets, navigating the train stations, communicating in a foreign language, are all skills you get from travelling by rail, says Freire-Stella. What he stresses the most is how railways let you meet people. “People meeting each other creates Europe”, he says. “People travelling by train creates Europe.”
“The pressure to deliver part of my work is incredibly high”, says a postdoc in Social Sciences at VU. “The project is stuck, but my supervisors still expect me to produce publishable results soon. I have no idea how I’m supposed to meet those expectations.” The postdoc, who wishes to remain anonymous, sleeps badly because of it. She is pregnant and worries about what all those stress hormones might do to her unborn child. She will soon go on maternity leave and has no idea how she is supposed to finish her work before then. “I’ve tried many times to explain where the project is running into problems, but it feels as though my supervisors don’t want to hear it.”
Unfortunately, she is no exception. On average, postdocs experience a great deal of work-related stress, according to research by Professor of Organizational Sciences Christine Teelken. Her data show that the situation has worsened in recent years: in 2019, VU postdocs rated their wellbeing at an average of 4.7 on a scale from 1 to 7. In 2025, this had dropped to 2.47 – more than two points lower – according to the research carried out by Teelken and her colleagues Inge van der Weijden and Romy van der Lee. This deterioration surprised the researchers themselves as well. “There is more attention to the issues postdocs face, for example from HR departments, but apparently that is not enough.”
For 42% of postdocs, the problems are so severe that there are serious concerns about their mental wellbeing (in 2020 this figure was 39%). They mainly suffer from depressive symptoms and anxiety. A third of postdocs report sleep problems, and about half are under constant tension. These figures are higher than in the general population. The problem is international. Postdocs in Germany also experience high levels of stress: a study by the Max Planck Institute among 872 of its own postdocs showed that nearly a third suffer from moderate to severe depression, and a quarter from moderate to severe anxiety.
The postdocs in Teelken’s study point to their working conditions as the main cause of their stress: job insecurity, heavy workloads, internal competition that poisons the working atmosphere, favoritism, and poor supervision are frequently mentioned. While they are generally positive about the content of their work, they are far less satisfied with the organization and working conditions. ‘I feel like a disposable’, one of them writes.
“The postdoc phase is the most vulnerable phase of an academic career”, says Teelken. “Postdocs often start out in a new country, there is less supervision and fewer facilities than for PhD candidates. They are often on their own.” Their contracts are also shorter than those of PhD candidates, and they are at a stage in life when questions about whether or not to have children become more pressing. Some find that colleagues and supervisors are reluctant to invest in them because they will be gone again in a few years. Openly complaining is not an option. If they ever want a permanent academic position, they depend on references from their supervisors.
“Prospects for a permanent job are downright bleak”, says a postdoc in the Exact Sciences. For her, the main source of stress is that she is expected to do a substantial amount of work within the project she was hired for, while at the same time needing to do additional things to improve her chances of securing a permanent academic position. That is why she maintains contacts in the research field in which she completed her PhD and attends conferences that do not directly fall within her current field. And all of this alongside raising a family with two young children.
‘Prospects for a permanent job are downright bleak’
Both postdocs we speak with for this article feel they cannot afford to make any wrong choices. The social scientist sometimes wonders whether coming to the Netherlands was the right decision. Had she stayed in her home country, she could have obtained a permanent position as an assistant professor straight away. “But my Dutch husband and I had agreed that we would move to the Netherlands after my PhD.” She tells herself that moving to another country is always difficult, but still she finds it harder than she expected. Lately she has been crying a lot and waking up at night – she thinks it’s a combination of pregnancy hormones and stress.
Postdocs are a relatively invisible group in academia. They are not working toward a PhD anymore, and they usually have short-term contracts of two or three years, sometimes even just one year. Still, they carry out an enormous amount of work. They take on a large share of short-term research projects, they teach, and sometimes they supervise PhD candidates. When their contracts end, they are replaced by a new generation of postdocs. You could call them the worker bees of the university.
The exact number of postdocs at VU isn’t even known. Teelken explains: “In the UFO system (the system used to register university positions), the postdoc position does not exist. You have the UFO categories ‘Researcher 3’ and ‘Researcher 4’ – many of those are postdocs, but not all.” At VU there are around 700 researchers in these two profiles; Teelken estimates that about two thirds of them are postdocs.
Uncertainty and hard work are manageable for a few years, as long as you know there is an end in sight. But young scientists are having to wait longer and longer for a permanent academic position. “The boundary of uncertainty keeps shifting”, says Teelken. The oldest postdocs in her research are well into their forties. Years of uncertainty weigh heavily on scientists and influence their life choices. In her survey, Teelken encountered female scientists who do not have children and later regretted it.
For the two postdocs we spoke to, the prolonged uncertainty is a major source of stress. “It’s stressful to constantly be thinking about what your next step should be”, says the natural scientist, “to be continually applying for jobs and writing grant applications, each time slightly different; to imagine what it would be like to live in yet another country; to ask yourself what the best move is for your career, but also for your family. I love the international vibe of science, but there is a limit to how long I can keep this up.”
The social scientist also sometimes considers giving up her academic career because of the uncertainty and stress that come with it, though not because she wants to. “Since I was nineteen, I’ve been working toward an academic career”, she says. “It would be very hard for me to give up that dream, but sometimes I feel so overwhelmed that I don’t see any other option.”
This highlights another aspect of this group: postdocs are generally highly motivated and enthusiastic about their work. “Postdocs are incredibly valuable; they often underestimate how important they are”, says Teelken. “We need to value them more. I understand that universities cannot offer everyone a permanent contract, but it is time for more attention and better support for postdocs, because they do indispensable work.”
Don’t let yourself be exploited; be aware that you are important to research
Organize yourselves: connect with other postdocs and build a network together
Be aware that there is also strong demand for highly educated people outside academia
Source: Christine Teelken, Professor of Organizational Sciences.
For this article, Ad Valvas spoke with two postdocs who wanted to share their experiences anonymously. Their identity is known to the editorial staff. The inaugural speech of Christine Teelken will take place on 13 February.
Approximately 56,000 Bachelor’s students enrolled at Dutch universities in 2025. That is 3.4 percent less than last year. For the fifth year in a row, the number of first-year students has decreased. The drop is visible among Dutch students (down 3.3 percent) as well as international students (down 3.6 percent).
Among Bachelor’s programmes, only law saw an increase in the number of Dutch first-year students. For programmes in the field of Behavioural & Social Sciences, numbers remained stable, while enrolment declined in all other programmes.
According to Universities of the Netherlands (UNL), the drop can be explained by fewer pre-university (VWO) pupils going on to enrol in a degree programme: fewer VWO pupils took their final exams, and the pass rate also declined. In addition, more VWO pupils are opting for a gap year.
International enrolment also fell, by 3.6 percent. Students from EEA countries in particular are increasingly turning away from Bachelor’s programmes in the Netherlands.
© HOP, source: UNL
The outgoing Schoof administration wanted to cut funding related to these students through a new law that aimed to reduce the number of internationals, including the introduction of a ‘language test’ for English-taught programmes. However, the new coalition government has decided to scrap this plan.
Interestingly, sectors that are plagued by shortages of skilled workers, such as engineering and health, are attracting more international students. Nearly one in five international students who started a Bachelor’s programme in the Netherlands in 2025 chose an engineering degree.
Delft, Eindhoven and Wageningen were the only universities to attract more international students in 2025 than in 2024. In Wageningen’s case, the count rose by a single student. However, the universities of Eindhoven and Wageningen attracted fewer domestic students, meaning their overall intake still declined.
Despite fewer international students coming to Leiden, the university nevertheless saw more first-year students starting their studies: the number of new Dutch Bachelor’s students rose by almost six percent.
The University of Amsterdam remains the largest university in the Netherlands, but welcomed more than six hundred fewer first-year students in 2025 than in 2024. VU Amsterdam also saw its first-year intake fall, by roughly five hundred students.
© HOP, source: UNL
In total, 332 thousand Bachelor’s and Master’s students are enrolled at Dutch universities. Of these, approximately 91 thousand are international students. Last year, the total number of students was 338 thousand.
UNL is concerned about the decline. “Without a strategy to invite talent, we are undermining our academic base, societal innovation and our economy”, says UNL president Caspar van den Berg.
The government parties have included such a talent strategy in their new coalition agreement. “Higher education institutions will be given more opportunities to attract top international talent and retain domestic talent”, write D66, CDA and VVD.
At the same time, the coalition parties consider it important to ‘control’ the influx of international students and want to make “binding administrative agreements” on this with educational institutions.