5.1 Accountability

On July 14, 2022, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, universities of applied sciences, and universities concluded an Administrative Agreement. In this Agreement, the three parties state that the Netherlands has a strong and accessible system of higher education and science, with high quality across the board, combined with many centers of excellence. To further strengthen this system and solve a number of bottlenecks, parties made agreements on the following topics:

• Strengthening the foundation: starter and incentive grants, Sector Plans, practical research universities of applied sciences, educational quality, internationalization;

• Making room for talent: student well-being, workload, and social safety;

• Increasing social impact: knowledge utilization, connection between education and the labor market, macro-efficiency, and revitalization of regions experiencing population decline.

The agreements apply in part to the entire sector and, in addition, are in part specific to universities of applied sciences and universities, respectively.

To give space to free, non-related research, it is important to invest in increasing the basic funding for research. All universities experience bottlenecks in this regard. However, the position of the three relatively young universities (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Maastricht University, and Tilburg University) is extra constraining as a result of the historically grown situation. In the distribution of funds from the Administrative Agreement, this was recognized, and these universities received additional funds. These resources were allocated in the form of additional starter grants and are thus earmarked. The allocation of these grants is subject to conditions. An evaluation is foreseen after two years, and the minister has indicated that if the evaluation is positive the funds will be added to the university's basic research funding. This makes the university limited in the first few years when it comes to the use of these funds and does not have the steering options that are needed.

It is important to note that the earmarking of funds means that the basic funding problem cannot be solved. It should be noted that with the additional resources, even after being added to the basic research funding, the basic funding problem is only partially solved.

Accountability and monitoring were also agreed upon. On a number of topics, this accountability must be provided in the annual report of the institutions, in a recognizable way and in a separate chapter "Administrative Agreement.”

The Administrative Agreement lists the following topics for this purpose:

1. Educational Quality

Tilburg University's multi-year budget provides insight into the goals and spending of funds for the Quality Agreements. This is accounted for in the Executive Report and Annual Accounts 2022, see Chapter 3 for an explanation. The Administrative Agreement did not affect the current agreements in 2022.

2. Social safety and inclusion

Social safety and inclusion are key focus areas within the new university Strategy. Chapters 2.3 Attention to Student Well-being and 7.1 Human Resources of the Executive Report discuss how Tilburg University has worked to provide a safe and inclusive study and work environment for students and staff in 2022.

Tilburg University has had rules of conduct in place since the end of 2019 that stipulate, among other things, that unsafe and transgressive behavior will not be tolerated. This fulfills the relevant agreement in the Administrative Agreement.

3. Knowledge Utilization

In 2022, for the purpose of promoting knowledge utilization, entrepreneurship and (regional) collaboration, among other things, a Research Contracting Guide was developed. This includes a revision of the internship and thesis agreements, and the model Research Data Agreement has been developed. This provides employees, students, and contract partners with a better understanding of each person's rights when dealing with intellectual property rights and confidential information. At the strategic level, efforts were made to further develop the academic collaborative centers and university ecosystems (see Chapters 6.1 and 62.).

4. Starter and incentive grants

Policy and decision-making regarding starter grants took place in 2022. The distribution of grants among Schools (minus 20% for indirect costs) is based on numbers of enrolled students. This led to the following distribution for 2022:

In 2022, policy was established for the awarding of these grants. The number of starter grants available for 2022 was lower than the number of assistant professors eligible based on the Administrative Agreement. Schools are in discussions with all eligible assistant professors.

Goals from the administrative agreement are to reduce workloads and encourage non-related research. As a university, we have translated this into the following policy principles for the distribution of starter grants:

• Encouraging non-related research, reducing work, competition, and application pressure (Workload premise);

• Alignment with Tilburg University and its own faculty's strategy, existing academic programs, and promotion of interdisciplinarity (Policy congruent premise);

• The importance of balancing research and education and promoting team science (Recognition & Appreciation Principle); and

• Remaining sufficiently available to provide education (Solidarity and Quality Principle).

By December 2022, a large number of starter grants have been conditionally awarded, that is, on condition that the assistant professor prepares a spending plan approved by the Dean/Academic Director JADS. For approval, the plan is assessed (only) on the principles mentioned above and its feasibility. Awarding of the remaining available grants will take place in early 2023. Spending of grants (not being indirect costs) has not yet taken place in 2022.
Further direction on implementation, monitoring, and evaluation will be given in the follow-up process.

Incentive grants have not yet been awarded in 2022; policy and decision-making on these will be finalized in early 2023.

5. Profiling and collaboration: Sector Plans

Tilburg University participates in the SSH Sector Plan, consisting of sub-plans for Social and Behavioral Sciences (MAGW), for Humanities (GW) and for an SSH-wide cross-cutting theme.

In the deployment of the OCW funds, the focus is on creating permanent appointments for additional assistant professors on the prioritized themes in the Sector Plan. In addition, through a surcharge on the assistant professor salary costs, investments will be made in transfer opportunities of the assistant professor to associate professor positions. No format has yet been established nationally for reporting on the use of Sector Plan funds.

Starting in the summer of 2022, Schools began appointing staff to assistant professor positions available to the university.

6. Knowledge security

The content of the policy on knowledge security is reported in the risk section of this annual report. The Administrative Agreement contains some specific agreements on this subject, which are reported on below:

• Institutions should establish a knowledge security portfolio holder at the administrative level: for Tilburg University, the President of the Executive Board is the portfolio holder;

• Institutions should conduct a knowledge safety risk assessment: Tilburg University started the risk assessment on knowledge security in late 2022. This risk analysis will be completed in the first quarter of 2023. The Board of Governors will be informed about the results;

• The sector-wide external audit (scheduled for the end of 2022) will be conducted in first half of 2023, a delegate from Tilburg University participates in the sounding board group of this audit.

Also read

5.2 Additional reports

The community of 20.000 students

The story of Tea