Automatic grants ‘would ease pressure on academics’

Dutch science academy proposes grants of up to €500,000 for every tenured professor

The KNAW academy of sciences has put forward a proposal to offer each tenured academic a five-year rolling grant to spend on blue-sky research.

In a report published on 16 October, a KNAW committee said that all assistant, associate and full professors in the Netherlands should automatically receive such a grant upon tenure. Committee members asked science minister Ingrid van Engelshoven to allocate €500 million a year in fresh funding to the scheme.