By Milar Zaghal and Elea Jürß
“I didn’t know this was going on. I feel almost lied to. Why didn’t I know this?”
– Hind Fathy, first-year Humanities student
In February, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) – one of AUC’s parent universities – opened its Centre for Defence and Resilient Society, in collaboration with the Dutch Ministry of Defence.
In its annual plan for 2026, the university established its goal to strengthen its collaboration with the Ministry of Defence. According to the VU’s website, “the CDWS has a coordinating and facilitating role and does not conduct research itself”. They state that the centre acts as a connecting point between researchers and the ministry to consolidate and provide guidance in security, resilience and defence-related research.
The developments at the VU can be traced back to the Ministry’s Strategy for Industry and Innovation 2025-2029, prioritising “scaling up innovation, production, and partnerships”. It specifically mentions the relevance of collaboration with civil research partners, such as universities and think tanks. 20 percent of the Ministry’s budget will be allocated to “knowledge building, testing and innovation”.
Marthe Giraudet, a first-year Science student, admits that there can be benefits to such a collaboration, as long as it doesn’t just focus on the sciences. “There is definitely an ethical way to collaborate, but then the importance that is being put on militarisation needs to be put on the arts, the humanities, and creative things as well,” she says. She worries about the production of weaponry and destructive technology at an academic institution so closely related to AUC.
Others agree that there are positives to the collaboration between the Ministry of Defence and the VU. “If one of our parent universities, which we allegedly trust, can facilitate that [discourse], I think that is better than collaborating with the private market, more profit-seeking people and companies contributing to everlasting war around the world,” says Omri Shenker, first-year Social Science student.
Some students have a different perspective. “I don’t think there should be a collaboration,” says Tamara Erlebach, a first-year Science student. She believes that educational institutions should not be tied to the government, specifically not to the military.
Executive board chair of the VU Margrethe Jonkman told the VU student newspaper AD VALVAS: “The connotation with militarisation is obvious, but this is not about the development of hardcore munitions-like technology. It is about making society resilient, and VU Amsterdam is keen to play a role in that, precisely against polarisation in order to initiate dialogue”. However, according to AD VALVAS, students are calling out statements by the VU management defending the establishment of the centre for being “warmongering” and “hypocritical”.
The VU is not the only institution participating in the structural collaboration with the Ministry. The Universiteit van Amsterdam, AUC’s other parent university, is also upholding ties to partners such as the police and the defence sector to “strengthen the resilience and security of the Netherlands”.
Science lecturer Misha Velthuis also considers the impact of militarisation on the larger geopolitical landscape: “There is this tension between the desire to live in a world with no guns, versus the reality we are facing.” He thinks that this conversation should find room with AUC’s students, teachers, and in classrooms. Velthuis concludes: “Humans are volatile. The systems we find ourselves in are very vulnerable to structural failures. [It] leads to not knowing what [collaboration with the military] means for the role of the university.”
The Herring 