Minister criticises universities’ lack of transparency

The Netherlands’ Education Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf has said he is “shocked” at the lack of financial transparency which surrounds the funding of professorships at Dutch universities, reports DutchNews.nl.

The minister was responding to research done by the Financieele Dagblad which showed almost 700 external investors, including 200 private sector companies, finance a fifth of all university chairs. It took the paper almost a year to find out where the money came from because universities themselves did not know which chairs benefited from external funding and which professors were involved.

Dijkgraaf said academic research depends on money from the related fields but who pays what must be a matter of public accountability. “This sort of information should be up to date and available online,” he told the Financieele Dagblad.
Full report on the DutchNews.nl site