Abstract
In this interview, Rens Bod, historian of the Humanities, guides us through the recent reforms in Dutch higher education and tells us about the role academics’ activism has had in budgetary policy in the last decade. Bod is also the founder of WO in Actie (Higher Education in Action), a movement of Dutch academics that started advocating for adequate funding of universities in 2017. Since then, the movement has grown through various actions, targeted first and foremost at improving working conditions in Dutch academia. An increase in university funding has been achieved in 2021, after years of activism and contacts with the ministry. But the movement also raised awareness around other problematic issues in Dutch universities that impinge on working conditions: social safety, the amount of pressure on academics’ careers and their evaluation, the lack of time dedicated to research in some academic positions, and the lack of democracy in decision making inside universities.
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