{"id":172389,"date":"2024-10-14T15:35:46","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T13:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=172389"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:27:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:27:31","slug":"lists-of-professors-sponsors-offer-only-the-illusion-of-transparency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2024\/10\/14\/lists-of-professors-sponsors-offer-only-the-illusion-of-transparency\/","title":{"rendered":"Lists of professors\u2019 sponsors offer only the illusion of transparency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who is really funding this chair? The lists of external financiers, which were published online after prolonged political wrangling, offer little clarity. Most sponsors are nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFemke Legu\u00e9<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The medical faculty at Erasmus University Rotterdam receives funding from pharmaceutical companies such as Novartis, Roche, and Pfizer for research into personalised cancer medication. This isn\u2019t necessarily suspicious; without this funding, the research might not even be possible.<\/p>\n

However, the professor leading this research is not listed among those with externally funded chairs. Nor are his colleagues. Although Erasmus MC receives millions of euros from companies, the list of externally funded professors is conspicuously short: it contains zero names.<\/p>\n

Only salaries<\/h2>

This year, universities were supposed to reveal the financial ties their professors have with companies, foundations, or other organisations. After all, money flows in from all directions: from the fossil fuel industry to the pesticide lobby, and from tax advisors to the tax office. How can we be sure that scientists are independent enough?<\/p>\n

After much political wrangling, universities published lists of external financiers of academic chairs online. But these provide little insight, as research by the Higher Education Press Agency (HOP) shows. Only those contributing to a professor\u2019s salary are listed. Sponsors of specific research projects are left out.<\/p>\n

For instance, Erasmus University lists only one professor of accountancy<\/a> whose chair is partly funded by Ernst & Young, along with a few endowed professors. Yet the university\u2019s annual report reveals that last year, it received 31 million euros from companies for research. Another 106 million euros came from other external financiers, such as foundations, government bodies, or \u2018international organisations\u2019.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of this money flows to Erasmus MC. So there are certainly plenty of externally funded professors there. Why aren\u2019t they listed? The answer is that while their chairs are not funded, their research is. Professors raise research funds \u2018in a personal capacity\u2019, according to a spokesperson, and these do not need to be made public.<\/p>\n

This type of research funding is not secret, however. Researchers usually disclose their sponsors themselves, as stipulated by the academic integrity code. But a central, up-to-date, and complete overview of sponsors is lacking.<\/p>\n

More transparency<\/h2>

In April, the previous cabinet promised<\/a> greater transparency regarding the funding of academic research. Then-Minister Dijkgraaf wrote to the House of Representatives that he considered it \u2018important to be transparent about who is funding chairs and research\u2019.<\/p>\n

While the minister was writing this, universities published the promised lists<\/a> of \u2018external funding of professors\u2019 online. These did not include endowed professors, who are usually employed by companies; their lists had already been published, though initially not without errors.<\/p>\n

The lists released this spring concern \u2018regular\u2019 professors, who can also be sponsored. For example, it is now known that in Tilburg, a professor of international banking is paid by the European Central Bank<\/a>, and a professor of indirect taxation receives funding from a tax advisory firm. In Leiden<\/a>, the chair in international law and geopolitics is co-financed by Kikkoman Foods.<\/p>\n

Undisclosed<\/h2>

These lists were a response to revelations about companies secretly contributing to professors\u2019 salaries. When Nieuwsuur<\/a> exposed yet another financial arrangement in 2022 (the tax office had concealed its funding of a professor of tax law), Minister Dijkgraaf held talks with university rectors. They were in full agreement, Dijkgraaf later wrote<\/a>: it must be clear \u2018who is contributing to chairs and research\u2019.<\/p>\n

However, the fact that the minister frequently mentions the financiers of \u2018chairs and research\u2019 together does not mean universities are disclosing both. Erasmus University\u2019s example is not unique. Universities have collectively agreed to exclude research project funding from the lists, confirms the Universities of the Netherlands (UNL).<\/p>\n

Wageningen University, for instance, also has no regular professors who are externally funded, according to its spokesperson. Yet in 2023, the university received around \u20ac12 million from companies for research.<\/p>\n

This week, the university made headlines because Wageningen researchers had contributed to the pesticide lobby. The researchers were first hired by the lobby to conduct research and then helped with the lobbyists\u2019 PR efforts. On Friday, the university\u2019s board acknowledged<\/a> to the Zembla TV programme that the researchers had created \u2018the appearance of a conflict of interest\u2019.<\/p>\n

Bias<\/h2>

These researchers are not professors, so they would not have appeared on the list of external financiers anyway. But for SP MP Sandra Beckerman, the Wageningen case highlights the problem: \u201cWhen companies co-fund research, there is a risk of biased outcomes. They also push out essential research for which there is neither time nor money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beckerman believes this problem is structural: \u201cWe\u2019re stuck in a cycle where such issues come to light, the university apologises, and yet the situation persists. The reliance on external funding is too great and is only growing due to cuts by the new minister.\u201d<\/p>\n

University income<\/h2>

Payments from companies, foundations, governments, international organisations, and similar financiers account for around a fifth of universities\u2019 income. This so-called \u2018third stream\u2019 amounted to approximately 1.7 billion euros in 2022.<\/p>\n

At the HOP\u2019s request, the Rathenau Institute investigated how much of this money is intended for research (and not for courses, venue hire, etc.). The figure is 84 percent, or 1.4 billion euros.<\/p>\n

How the new cabinet views transparency remains to be seen. The Ministry of Education has stated that universities themselves are responsible for maintaining \u2018current, complete, comparable, and accessible\u2019 lists of academic chair sponsors.<\/p>\n

New guidelines<\/h2>

However, the ministry also said that officials are \u2018working with, at least, the Universities of the Netherlands\u2019 on new guidelines to improve transparency in research funding. These are expected to be finalised in 2025.<\/p>\n

The Partij voor de Dieren\u00a0believes this should have been made public long ago, says MP Ines Kosti\u0107. She argues that it must be clear how much research is sponsored by the fossil fuel industry and the agricultural sector, for instance. Last January, her motion calling for the guidelines was passed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, not everyone shares her view. Of the (then still forming) coalition parties, only NSC supported her motion. PVV, VVD, and BBB voted against it.<\/p>\n\n\t

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