A recruitment drive has raised enough financial support to keep the website ScienceGuide on air, the editors write on their own website (in Dutch). The national website for news and opinion on higher education is in dire straits and threatened to close or disappear behind a paywall as of 17 February.
On its website, the platform thanks its Advisory Board and it partner institutions, some eleven colleges and organisations. “Without their contributions and efforts, the platform would have been defunct,” it said. To keep ScienceGuide on the air, it became possible to take out a collective subscription. The website recently made an appeal for collective subscriptions, in an effort to keep the platform on air.
Not supporting
A few universities responded. Among them not TU Delft. About that, vice-rector magnficus Rob Mudde said recently in the student council: “We will not support it because we are not satisfied with the level of journalism.”
This concern is not only felt in Delft, ScienceGuide also realizes. “The past period has also shown [that] there is formidable resistance to ScienceGuide in some boardrooms, allegedly out of dissatisfaction with the journalistic standards used by the editors,” the editors write.
How things will proceed remains to be seen. That depends on subscribers’ preferences and support in the future, according to ScienceGuide. (HOP, BB/Delta, KB)
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