UvA wants to end all collaborations with Israel
The UvA has announced its intention to withdraw early from its ten research collaborations with Israel, if there is legal room to do so. This was stated today in a joint letter from the Executive Board and all deans to students and staff. The UvA also said it will no longer enter into any new collaborations with Israeli institutions.
The UvA is examining whether the ten ongoing research collaborations with Israel can be terminated early. In addition, the UvA will not enter into any new partnerships even after a ceasefire in Gaza. The exchange program with Tel Aviv University will end next year. The university wants to end the collaborations because there is “increasing evidence of a genocide in Gaza.”
Critical voices
According to the UvA, Israeli institutions are closely linked to the government. The university therefore says it cannot rule out that collaborations contribute to human rights violations committed by the Israeli government. However, the UvA emphasizes that it wishes to keep individual contacts open. Individual students and researchers, according to the university, “often represent a critical voice against the actions of the Israeli government.”
The letter follows shortly after the agreement between Hamas and Israel, which took effect last Monday. Although the war appears to have come to a temporary halt, the UvA emphasizes that “peace and justice cannot be achieved with a single agreement.” Continuing collaborations that may still “contribute to human rights violations” does not align with the university’s values, the authors of the letter state.
Protesters’ demands
With this decision, the UvA is responding to the demands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the university. The activist group Amsterdam Encampment and the Activistenpartij recently urged the UvA to “at least make every effort” to withdraw from the research partnerships. The university now says it is indeed examining what legal room there is to terminate them. In September, the UvA told Folia that the consequences of such a termination for researchers were too severe to end the collaborations immediately.
Protesters also called on the UvA last week to label the situation in Gaza as genocide. The university does not use those exact words, but it does state that there is a growing academic consensus that “a genocide is taking place in Gaza and that Israel does not respect the fundamental principles of the rule of law.”
No new collaborations
In June of this year the UvA declared not to enter into any new research collaborations with Israeli institutions amidst an EU investigation into Israel. The ten research collaborations are all conducted through the EU’s Horizon Europe fund. Although the EU investigation has now been completed and the association agreement has not been suspended, the UvA considers the conclusions strong enough not to continue with the collaborations.
The exchange program with Tel Aviv University had also been under review by the ethics committee for cooperation with third parties since June. The UvA has now decided to terminate that partnership as well. Earlier, the exchange program with the Hebrew University had already been ended. This leaves the ten research collaborations as the university’s only remaining direct projects with Israel.
