ScienceGuide, a Dutch-language website for news and opinion on higher education and research, is in dire straits. The platform will have to shut down this week or disappear behind a pay wall.
ScienceGuide can only continue if enough individual subscribers sign up or if higher education institutions take out a collective subscription. Universities will not do the latter, it emerged this week during a meeting of the TU Delft Student Council and the Executive Board (cvb).
Level of journalism
Koos Meesters of The Party wanted to know whether TU Delft intended to support ScienceGuide. Vice-rector and CVb member Rob Mudde was then clear: “We have discussed this with all rectors, but we are not going support this because we are not satisfied with the level of journalism.” In the past, several universities supported the platform, but they have stopped.
The editors need not expect any help from outgoing minister Dijkgraaf either, according to his answers to written questions from PvdA-GroenLinks. “I regret the situation that an open and independent platform like ScienceGuide is threatening to quit,” Dijkgraaf writes. But he sees no reason to prevent it, he adds.
Delta, SB / HOP, BB
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