Venture Lab Humanities causes controversy
Students and professors of the Humanities faculty fear Venture Lab will favour wealthy students and exclude poorer ones.
The so-called ‘Venture Lab Humanities’ will open its doors this November in the former UvA Students Services office on the Binnengasthuisterrein. Students and employees will be able to use the coaching services, expertise and office space of Venture Lab to help them start their own company.
Venture Lab Humanities is a branch of Ace Venture Lab, a cooperation between the UvA, the Vrije Universiteit and the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. The official UvA branch is located on the Science Park campus. Since its foundation more than six years ago, dozens of UvA researchers have started an enterprise using Ace’s facilities.
Activist student collective Humanities Rally, however, calls Venture Lab Humanities a, ‘neoliberal monstrosity’. To participate in Venture Lab, students and employees will be required to pay a 1000 euro joining fee. Humanities Rally contends this will widen the gap between wealthy students and those less well off. They also contend that the academic community has never been consulted on the opening of the branch. Humanities Rally met last Thursday to discuss further action.
Letter
Professor Josef Früchtl is also worried about the potential for negative impact, writing a letter to the faculty’s Director of Operations, Gerard Nijsten, to ask him to explain the situation. In his letter, Früchtl suggested that Nijsten should organise various consultation rounds involving the Works Councils of the university and the faculty.
Nijsten has responded by emphasising that the Venture Lab Humanities will start as a pilot. ‘We will evaluate if something like Venture Lab fits within the culture of the Humanities faculty,’ he said. A decision on whether or not to continue the project will be taken by the end of the academic year.
Wealth
Erik Boer, CEO of Ace Venture Lab, has voiced his regret that the opening of Venture Lab Humanities has caused such controversy. According to Boer, their intention is not to put students and employees in a position to amass wealth. ‘We asked ourselves: how can we apply academic research within society?’ Boer says researchers could use knowledge gained from Venture Lab Humanities to start a company, but argues that they could also do so in other ways. Educational institution, Bildung Academy will also have their office at Venture Lab. ‘They will apply their knowledge by providing courses.’
Scholarship
‘We acknowledge that the 1000 euro fee may cause difficulties,’ admits Director of Operations Nijsten, who is working with the Amsterdam University Fund to create a fund to provide scholarships for students who want to start an enterprise. Innovation Exchange Amsterdam (IXA) also intends to award scholarships to students and employees with ‘good ideas’. Such a scholarship could accumulate up to ‘a thousand euros,’ Mirjam Leloux, director of the UvA department at IXA says.
