What exactly is the committee working on?

'The third-party collaboration advisory committee was set up in 2021External link to help prevent research data from being used improperly or unethically by the parties with which UvA researchers collaborate. The committee has a policy framework that researchers use to make decisions about who they collaborate with.'

'That framework needs to move with the times, so that it provides answers to current issues. That also happened when UvA was discussing collaborations with fossil fuel partners, such as ShelExternal linkl. Now, considering the debate around collaboration with organisations in conflict zones such as the Middle East, we need to take another look to see whether the framework is still adequate.'

What does that involve?

'As with the update for partners from the fossil fuel industry, we think it’s important for students and staff to have had a say in this. We (the committee) are therefore building on the work of an ad hoc working group that gathered input from the academic communityExternal link before the summer break. Among other things, that group made 11 recommendations. We've started with those recommendations and builded on from there.'

'The current policy framework is not sufficiently suited to being applied to research and education collaborations with organisations in countries in conflict zones. So we’re looking at refining it, and we’re getting some help from experts to do that. These are UvA scholars with expertise in human rights, genocide studies, conflict studies and international educational collaborations. If we find we need other areas of expertise along the way, we can ask more experts to join the team.'

The protest was mainly about collaboration with Israeli organisations. Is the committee focusing solely on that?

'No, we deliberately chose not to. That would be too narrow a focus. We’re currently working on two tracks. The first is refining the existing framework, and the second is a more focused approach where we highlight three current cases. These are a student exchange with an institution in Israel (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), collaboration with the Chinese Scholarship Council and student exchanges with universities in Hungary. We have to remind ourselves we are now working on a future-proof policy framework. That can be used in many different situations.'

What dilemmas have you encountered during this work?

'Some things are very clear: for example, under no circumstances do you want research to directly and 'causally' contribute to human rights violations. We don’t need to debate that. Our discussions focus on situations where the link between our research and human rights violations is indirect.'

‘The conversations on this issue are quite complex. It is important to be clear about the difference between personal beliefs and the values our university stands for. The committee members, who are all academics with extensive experience in international collaborations, are always looking for the right words and trade-offs and trying to find where the boundaries lie.'

When will you complete this process?

'We’re doing our best to issue advice on those three collaborations before the end of the year. The expansion of the framework will also be completed before the end of the year. But our work won’t end there. Even after this expansion, we will keep talking about how to apply the framework and its additional criteria in academic practice.'

'The UvA already gives considerable attention to the ethical dimensions of our academic collaborations, and developments in the world demand that we keep critically re-examining our frameworks. This helps to create awareness among researchers about who we collaborate with and how that relates to our values.'

More information

• See the 11 recommendations of the ad hoc working groupExternal link
• Go to uva.nl to see all information on the protests and the steps taken by the UvAExternal link