WUR tasked with 80 million in budget cuts

WUR must cut back on spending by 80 million euros. To this end, personnel costs will also be taken into consideration. This message was posted on the intranet today. Board member Rens Buchwaldt, who is responsible for finances, does not pinpoint precisely where the budget cuts will be implemented, but ‘WUR faces a challenge.’

WUR is not the only university that has announced budget cuts. Twente University announced drastic measures yesterday, potentially affecting some 550 jobs. Moreover, student assistants will be cut. The UvA announced today that it faces annual budget cuts totalling 110 euros.

Buchwaldt paints a less gloomy picture, but Wageningen, too, has ‘its work cut out’. He refers to the mega cutbacks in tertiary education announced by the new coalition agreement. The government budget for tertiary education is reduced by one billion euros. As a result, the national sector plans in which the universities formulate agreements on research and education will be axed (215 million annually). For WUR, ‘There is some room to react to financial developments,’ Buchwaldt says.

Negative consequences

For now, Buchwaldt says the focus lies on delaying expenditure, such as the planned remodelling of the Atlas building, or energy-saving measures, such as closing buildings during holidays and taking a critical look at job openings and temporary positions. Still, ‘both the university (WU) and Research (WR), education and other costs, including staff departments and support face a huge task’ and ‘[…] the scope thereof and the resulting choices will have negative consequences.’ WUR has reduced budgets across the board by 5 per cent for next year.

The executive board, managing directors, staff directors, and operations directors will make the necessary decisions under the scrutiny of the codetermination council.

Buchwaldt concludes his statement by saying that personnel make up 70 per cent of all expenditures. ‘There, too, these choices will have consequences.’