RUG: Yantai is off

The plans for a branch campus in the Chinese city of Yantai have been cancelled. The Board of Directors has acknowledged that there is insufficient support in the University Council.
By Thereza Langeler and Rob Siebelink / Translation by Sarah van Steenderen

On Monday, the Council announced that the changed proposal for the Yantai branch campus would not get a majority vote. The Council has the right to consent on the proposal for a Chinese campus, and politicians also demanded there be sufficient support for the plans at the university. The RUG board has concluded that this support does not exist.

President Sibrand Poppema says he wants to meet with the faculties and programmes to research opportunities for other types of collaboration in Yantai.

First university

The RUG wanted to be the first Dutch university to have a branch campus in China, like the British University of Nottingham in Ningbo and the American New York University in Shanghai. Almost three years ago, in March of 2015, they signed a covenant to that end with the China Agricultural University in Yantai.

Opening a branch campus would be an opportunity for the RUG to expand upon its status of global university, they said for years. The collaboration would attract top students, top scientists and research appointments, which in turn would lead to more money.

On Monday, the University Council put an end to this. The Personnel Faction, Lijst Calimero, and the Democratische Academie Groningen, who together hold sixteen of the twenty-four seats in the Council, announced that they would definitively vote against the plans.

Dutch

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