When universities are complaining about an imminient shortage in research talent, they have only themselves to blame. Because still they are wasting the talent to a great extent, by only offering them temporary contracts as 'disposable researchers'.
With this tough stance the National Postdoc Platform (LPP) responded to the manifesto published by the universities together with the three large research organisations and employers organisation VNO/NCW. That manifesto called on the cabinet to do extra research investments. One of the arguments was that the influx of new scientific talent threatens to come to a standstill due to lack of funds.
But the LPP considers that argument a chutzpah. According to this club of young PhDs, in the past few years the universities have themselves been guilty of 'unprecedented destruction of human research capital' through incorrect human research management, as is stated in their counter-manifesto.
The core of the problem is that according to the LPP in the past fifteen years research in the Netherlands has been put into the hands of researchers with temporary contracts. It is still more attractive to faculties to contract new disposable researchers than to offer slightly more advanced researchers a permanent contract, the LPP concludes after analysing the CAO and the way in which research money is divided internally. A faculty, for example, gets a large amount of money for each completed PhD-thesis, but there is 'no incentive whatsoever to keep good PhDs for a longer period'.
