Universiteiten van Nederland (UNL), previously Vereniging van Universiteiten (VSNU; 'Association of Universities in the Netherlands') until November 2021, [1] is a trade group of government-funded research universities, including three special universities, and the Open University of the Netherlands. It formed as the Vereniging van Samenwerkende Nederlandse Universiteiten in 1985, as a successor to the Academische Raad (est. 1956). [2] [3]
The UNL acts as a consultative body for its members. [4] It is also the mouthpiece for universities in the national media. [4] It represents university education and research in the Cabinet of the Netherlands, the House of Representatives, and the European Union, [5] and in price negotiations with academic publishers such as Elsevier, Springer, and the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK). [6] [7] It is the employers' organization of Dutch universities. [8]
The association was located in Utrecht until 2005. [4] The institutions that are important for university policy, however, are often headquartered in The Hague. To optimize the interests of the universities towards these institutions, the UNL moved to The Hague in March 2005. [3]
Almost every country in the world has a university association that brings together common interests. There is also an umbrella of European university associations (the European University Association) and of universities worldwide (the International Association of Universities).
The association consists of the following 14 institutions: [9]
In 2022, the Universiteit voor Humanistiek (University of Humanistic Studies) became an associated member. [10]
Leiden University is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. It was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, making it the oldest institution of higher education in the Netherlands.
The University of Twente is a public technical university located in Enschede, Netherlands. The university has been placed in the top 170 universities in the world by multiple central ranking tables. In addition, the UT was ranked the best technical university in The Netherlands by Keuzegids Universiteiten, the most significant national university ranking. The UT collaborates with Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology and the Wageningen University and Research Centre under the umbrella of 4TU and is also a partner in the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU).
The Dutch public broadcasting system is a group of organizations that are responsible for public service television and radio broadcasting in the Netherlands. It is composed of the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO) foundation, which acts as its governing body, and a number of public broadcasters. The Dutch Media Act 2008 regulates how air time is divided and puts the administration of the public broadcasting system in the hands of the NPO Board of Directors.
Nyenrode Business Universiteit is a Dutch business university and the only private higher education institution that has the university status in the Netherlands. Founded in 1946, it is located on a large estate in the town of Breukelen, between Amsterdam and Utrecht. The educational institution is named after the castle where the course is located: Nijenrode Castle. Nyenrode was founded under the name of the Netherlands Training Institute for Abroad by renowned private Dutch companies, including KLM, Shell, Unilever, Philips, and AkzoNobel, with the objective 'For Business, By Business'. The establishment was the result of an idea from KLM director Albert Plesman.
The Dutch National Students Association is one of two national representations and spokesman of students in the Netherlands at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, VSNU, Association of Higher Professional Education, DUO, etc. The purpose of ISO is to improve the quality of higher education, protection of students' interests and representation of 688.000 students in higher education.
COC Nederland, also known as COC Netherlands, is a Dutch LGBTQ+ rights group founded in 1946. COC originally stood for Cultuur en Ontspanningscentrum, which was intended as a "cover" name for its real purpose. It is the oldest existing LGBT organization in the world.
The Nederlands Verbond voor Progressief Jodendom is the umbrella organisation for Progressive Jews in the Netherlands, and is affiliated to the World Union for Progressive Judaism. It was founded in 1931.
Jacobus Ruurd "Jaap" Bruijn, was a Dutch maritime historian. He was professor of maritime history at the University of Leiden from 1979 until his retirement in 2003. During his 41-year teaching career as The Netherlands' only university professor of maritime history, he guided the doctoral theses of at least 49 graduate students.
Pieter Jacob Duisenberg is an American-born Dutch politician and businessman who served as a member of the House of Representatives from 2012 to 2017 for the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). He resigned to become chairman of the Vereniging van Universiteiten per 1 October 2017. He is the son of Wim Duisenberg (1935–2005), the first President of the European Central Bank.
Naomi Ellemers is a distinguished professor of social psychology at Utrecht University since September 2015.
Carel Hendrik Blotkamp is a Dutch artist, art historian, writer and critic. He was a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam between 1982 and 2007. Apart from his academic career Blotkamp is known for his work in art critique, writing for several newspapers and magazines. He also co-founded several art magazines. Blotkamp is considered an authority on De Stijl and magic realism, and wrote several books on modern artists.
As of 2018, Wolters Kluwer ranks as the Dutch biggest publisher of books in terms of revenue. Other notable Dutch houses include Brill and Elsevier.
Scholarly communication of the Netherlands published in open access form can be found by searching the National Academic Research and Collaboration Information System (NARCIS). The web portal was developed in 2004 by the Data Archiving and Networked Services of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research and Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
NARCIS (National Academic Research and Collaboration Information System) of the Netherlands was an online portal for searching Dutch scientific research publications and data. As of July 2018, NARCIS indexed 268,989 data sets and 1,707,486 publications, including a significant proportion of open access works.
Hendrik Klaas Aldert"Henk"Visser was a Dutch pediatrician. He was professor of pediatrics at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Erasmus MC between 1967 and 1995.
Beatrice A. de Graaf is a Dutch history professor at the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University. Her areas of expertise are terrorism, international relations and security and the modern history of Europe.
The VSNU Elsevier contract is a legal agreement between Dutch research organisations and the scientific publishers Elsevier. Lasting from 2020 - 2024, the agreement has been portrayed as a significant shift in scholarly publishing, offering individual researchers at Dutch universities unlimited right to freely publish articles in Elsevier journals. While informally known as the VSNU contract, it is signed on behalf of a number of umbrella organisations for research in the Netherlands - the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), the Netherlands Federation of University Medical Centres (NFU) and the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The Dutch ICT organisation SURF acted as legal signatories for the contract.
Albertus Antonius Smijers, was a Dutch musicologist who served as Professor of Musicology at the University of Utrecht. As one of the first Dutch musicologists to receive a doctorate, he chaired several organisations such as the International Musicological Society. Smijers was also a noted authority on Josquin des Pres; he published 44 volumes of Werken van Josquin des Prez from 1941 until his death, while another 11 volumes were published posthumously by his students.
On May 6, 2024, pro-Palestinian protests broke out at the University of Amsterdam which quickly spread to other universities in the Randstad and the rest of the Netherlands. Although protests had been taking place as early as October 2023, which marks the start of the Israel–Hamas war, the protests intensified in May in the light of the Rafah offensive on May 6 and recent similar protests in the United States and elsewhere.