Research schools and doctoral candidates

Introduction
How can the Netherlands make the most out of science? On the basis of advice from the academic world, international comparisons and the funding of research The House of Representatives debated this question with Ms Marja Van Bijsterveldt-Vliegenthart, state secretary of Education, Culture and Science.

Cooperation between universities
Cooperation between universities is indispensable for scientific research. This relates to the shared use of research facilities and to the maintaining of international contacts, for instance. Recently, the state secretary received two reports on the organization of this cooperation, issued by institutions from the scientific world in the Netherlands.

Working smarter together
The first report is about the importance of cooperation between universities in the field of doctoral programmes ("Samen slimmer"; working smarter together). The advice was issued by a joint working group, set up by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) and theNetherlands Organisation for Scientific Research(NWO). Ms Van Bijsterveld wrote the House that she will not take a stance on the report until after a debate with the standing committee on Education, Culture and Science.

Changing environment
The second report was issued by theAdvisory Council for Science and Technology Policy (AWT). It deals with the question how research institutes can best act in a changing environment.AWT is of the opinion that research in the Netherlands needs a clearer structure. Meanwhile, the state secretary has made known to the House that the outgoing Cabinet will not reply to the report, because it deals with issues which are to make part of the forthcoming coalition negotiations, like the innovation of a number of Dutch research institutes, such as the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO).

More doctoral candidates
In order to increase the number of doctoral candidates the House of Representatives proposed to grant future doctoral candidates student status instead of employee status within the university. This would cost universities less. In December 2009, former education minister Mr Plasterk wrote the House he declined this suggestion.

Funding and international comparison
Other items on the agenda were:

• The budget for research and development of each government department;

• An international comparison of scientific research in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy. 

Debate
On Thursday 15 April the standing committee on Education, Culture and Science had a debate with Ms Marja Bijsterveldt-Vliegenthart, state secretary of Education, Culture and Science about research schools and doctoral candidates.

Science Systems Compared: a First Description of Governance Innovations in Six Science
Are Dutch universities able to compete with other universities within the European Research Area, and for overseas students? Do research organizations pay sufficient attention to industry interests? Are they too often lured by industry funding and losing their independence? Is research excellence and creativity getting enough space? Is research funding too competitive? On most of these issues there is little systematic evidence to determine what the most appropriate structure and governance of the research system is. To overcome this deficiency, we selected five countries to compare and contrast with the Dutch experiences.

http://www.rathenau.nl/uploads/tx_tferathenau/Science_Systems_Compared_Rathenau_Instituut.pdf