Universities agree to intensify collaboration on defence

Universities Netherlands (UNL) has signed an agreement to intensify cooperation between Dutch universities and the Ministry of Defence to meet the increased security challenge.

But the agreement has provoked some debate in academia about how universities can collaborate while protecting academic values and avoiding militarisation of universities.

On 21 September, UNL, represented by President Caspar van den Berg, signed a letter of intent together with the State Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, Derk Boswijk.

“In an era where the Dutch armed forces are increasingly dependent on collaborative partners, we strive together to address the shared task of protecting the freedom and democracy of both the Netherlands and its allies,” UNL said in a press release.

The press release said the ‘civil knowledge sector’ – specifically the Federation of Dutch Applied Science Institutes and NLR, the non-profit aerospace research organisation, and the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN) – as well as universities, universities of applied sciences, and secondary vocational education institutions – has long been linked to Defence with the shared goal of protecting Dutch society through the development and dissemination of knowledge.

“The security challenges of today and tomorrow call for close cooperation between Defence and universities,” the press release noted.

Since 2022, the Ministry of Defence has been strengthening its collaboration with civil knowledge institutions, such as Dutch universities, to integrate scientific expertise into Defence’s strategic and operational challenges.

UNL said that intensifying cooperation between the Ministry of Defence and Dutch universities requires different and new ways of working together. In this context, it is important to maintain continuous attention to everyone’s respective roles, strengths, and values.

“Universities in the Netherlands are autonomous institutions founded on the principles of academic freedom and scientific integrity. As these principles also underpin the strength of science, they are equally important to Defence and the partnerships it enters into. The shared underlying objective is to explore how to join forces to contribute to a safe and just society,” UNL stated.

Van den Berg said: “Universities want to use their knowledge to contribute to the major challenges facing our society. In the current geopolitical climate, peace, security, and resilience are explicitly part of this.

By collaborating with the Ministry of Defence, we can better leverage university expertise for a safe and resilient Netherlands – for instance, through research into societal resilience or the detection of chemical warfare agents – while upholding academic freedom and scientific independence as fundamental principles.”

Boswijk said: “Collaboration between knowledge institutions and the Ministry of Defence is crucial for strengthening the Netherlands’ national security and resilience.

“Through independent research, critical thinking, and the training of new generations of talent, universities provide indispensable insights for responding to a world becoming less secure due to mounting threats and geopolitical tensions.”

However, the Dutch Student Union (LSVb) warned that “collaboration between universities and the Ministry of Defence poses a threat to academic freedom”.

In a press statement, the union pointed out that throughout the declaration of intent of universities and the Ministry of Defence to collaborate more intensively and the accompanying statements, only in a brief subordinate clause or a final paragraph is it mentioned that academic freedom is paramount.

“This is despite the fact that the thematic direction of research – driven by funding or power – has direct consequences for independent research and, by extension, for academic freedom.

The union said academic freedom concerns the right to freely choose one’s research topics and the freedom to disseminate and exchange knowledge. But trust in science “erodes when external influences – in this case, the Ministry of Defence – shape scientific research”.

Evy Kras, chair of LSVb said: “When educational institutions become (partially) dependent on external funding, they have less freedom to choose their own research activities.

“It is not just a matter of money here but also of the impact on which topics are researched and which are not. This poses a threat to academic freedom. ‘Can a student or lecturer be critical of the hand that feeds them?’”

She told University World News that the research has a significant influence on the education provided because many teachers teach based on their own research.

“As a result, war fever is taking hold in the classrooms. Students are given less space and time to think for themselves about what they think of ‘defence’ if their teacher is already presenting a worldview to them. Students should be taught much more about moving towards peace than towards war.”

Growing budget for collaboration

There are growing opportunities for such collaborations because the Netherlands – and Europe as well – are investing heavily in national security. The European Commission intends to increase the budget for defence and space fivefold, to €131 billion (approximately US$147.91 billion) for the period 2028–2034, a small portion of which will go to research and innovation.

In the Netherlands, the budget will increase by €3.4 billion next year, reaching a total of €26.8 billion. Of that amount, €1.3 billion is reserved specifically for scaling up industry and knowledge and innovation.

The only question is where the military will obtain that knowledge and innovation, according to Leoni Andriessen, editor at Cursor, TU Delft’s newsletter.

In June 2025, the universities of applied sciences were already in discussions with the military regarding collaboration on “innovation hubs”.

“How do we keep the Netherlands safe in a world rife with geopolitical tensions? The Ministry of Defence aims to accelerate innovation and is actively seeking partnerships with industry and knowledge institutions to achieve this.

These collaborations take place within a network of regional innovation hubs, focusing on areas where the Netherlands excels and where opportunities for domestic production arise.

On 12 June, Maurice Limmen, chair of the Netherlands Association of Universities of Applied Sciences, visited the Defence innovation hub at the Brightlands Chemelot campus in Sittard-Geleen.

There, the Ministry of Defence works on developing new technologies and methods in collaboration with technology companies, startups, Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, and CHILL (Chemelot Innovation and Learning Labs)”, the press release said.

Universities have long since partnered with Defence. Letters of intent have even already been drawn up with individual universities. TU Delft, for example, signed one in April 2025. The army even has its own ‘base of operations’ on campus there.

In July 2026 a new MIND Tech Centre (Military Innovation by Doing) was established in collaboration with the Ministry of Defence at the TU Delft campus, claiming to be the “very first Dutch innovation centre where the Ministry of Defence, start-ups, and SMEs can collaborate on the defence technology of the future.”

Within the MIND Tech Centre, companies and the Ministry of Defence collaborate in a highly secure environment on areas such as drone and sensor technology, cybersecurity, energy infrastructure, smart materials, and space technology.

“Helping to make this centre possible aligns with TU Delft’s societal role,” Ingrid Thijssen, president of TU Delft’s executive board, said at the launch. “Enhancing the security and resilience of the Netherlands and Europe is a major societal challenge to which we, as a university, contribute.”

The centre is a joint initiative between the Ministry of Defence, TU Delft, and the Province of South Holland. The province is contributing €1 million (approximately US$1.1 million) to the project, with part of the funding coming from the European Union”, according to Defence Post.

Meanwhile, through research funder NWO (the Dutch Research Council), researchers can already apply for funding for research that can benefit the army. The first ten grants have now been awarded, nine to technical universities and one to the University of Amsterdam.

According to a report in My Science, the NWO Council has awarded more than €15 million in funding within the KIC call for high-performance materials for defence and security. The Ministry of Defence is focused on developing a new generation of equipment, with innovations in terms of weight, resilience and repairability. TU Delft is the lead institution for three of the ten research projects.

Sebastiaan Rietjens, who holds the special chair of ‘Intelligence in War & Conflict’ established and funded by the Netherlands Defence Academy at Leiden University and is a full professor of Intelligence & Security at the Netherlands Defence Academy, told University World News he was involved in the agreement signed between the MoD and the universities.

During the talks and signing ceremony, both parties addressed the unique role of the Faculty of Military Sciences as a “boundary spanner between the two worlds”. The Faculty of Military Sciences (FMW) is part of the Netherlands Defence Academy (NLDA) and is responsible for the universitylevel bachelor and masters programmes for aspiring officers, officers, and civilian personnel of the Ministry of Defence.

The scientific research conducted within the faculty contributes to the quality and relevance of its education, to knowledge development and the innovative capacity of the armed forces, and to the broader societal debate on the deployment and relevance of the military.

The research focuses on militarily relevant disciplines, including military operational sciences, international security studies, cyber security and operations, military ethics, military logistics, weapons and aviation systems, military sensor technology and data processing, and life cycle management.

“Contemporary security challenges increasingly transcend the boundaries of ministries and sectors. Addressing these challenges requires intensive cooperation between policy and operational stakeholders and, among others, industry and knowledge institutions.

“In this context, the FMW works closely with Dutch universities and thereby fulfils a bridging role between the Ministry of Defence and the academic world. This collaboration takes place in both education and research and is organised on a project basis as well as structurally,” Rietjens said.

Since March 2026, the FMW has been affiliated with UNL as a network member, and several FMW professors also hold appointments as (special) professors at Dutch universities, including Leiden University, the University of Amsterdam, Radboud University, Tilburg University, Delft University of Technology, and the University of Twente, Roetjens said.

Annelies van Vark, researcher and senior coordinating advisor at the Defence Staff, Ministry of Defence, who delivered her PhD thesis in 2025 on “Separation and immersion: the changing role of the armed forces in Northwestern liberal democracies”, told University World News she supports the increased cooperation between the universities and the Ministry of Defence in the area of research.

“The Ministry of Defence is in the middle of a huge transformation, to prepare for scenarios that we for a long time considered unlikely. This transformation involves a huge amount of money; taxpayers’ money that cannot be spent on healthcare, education or other important topics.

“Research can help us to make the right choices in spending this money and it therefore makes sense to use part of the Defence budget to finance research,” she noted.

She said she understands that some worry about the militarisation of education, but she doesn’t share that worry. “More civilian research could lead to more civilian influence on Defence policies and accordingly to more civilian oversight.”

She said her research on the role of the armed forces in liberal democracy shows that the role of the armed forces should be normalised, which means not seeing it as an exceptional actor, but as a regular bureaucratic actor.

“Research for the Ministry of Defence, in that sense, is no different than other research paid for by government organisations. Of course, we should remain vigilant that all research meets academic standards of scientific independence, just like in other fields of research.

“As a researcher within the Ministry of Defence this means I am constantly aware of my own positionality, and I use checks and balances to ensure my own independence,” van Vark said.

Tim de Winkel, representing the Algemene Onderwijsbond, told University World News he believes that cooperation between academia and societal sectors is not a problem if conducted on the|”terms and values that are ours”, referring to “academic freedom, academic practice and so forth”.

He highlighted the arguments made by Lauren Gould, a lecturer in conflict studies in Utrecht, in an article for the education union AOb’s website explaining that academia and the Ministry of Defence have different values.

Gould gave a precise definition of her concept of militarisation of the university as being “process that simultaneously emerges from, and produces, social relations that enable and legitimise war, preparations for war, and the harm they entail.”

But on the other hand, collaboration can also lead to “greater civilian oversight of the military and, consequently, to stronger democratic accountability”, she said.

“Universities need to think carefully about what role they want to play,” de Winkel said.