Like many other sectors, the academic world has had to adjust its activities in recent months. Examples in the letter are: closed labs, closed archives, inaccessible data, unreachable test subjects and research objects.
Henk Wals, director of DANS, underlines the necessity of the letter: “The corona crisis indeed has drastic consequences for young scientists. It is good that this letter has been sent. Hopefully, this action will have results. The crisis also demonstrates how important it is that scientists deposit their data in a reliable and professional repository, so that the data can be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable from anywhere.”
The sector has already done a lot to make up for the slowdown, but its own resources and reserves are insufficient to guarantee continuity of research and innovation. The letter is therefore an appeal to support the research of the upcoming generation with a continuity package of € 350 million. This amount was determined on the basis of internal calculations by the VSNU, NFU, NWO and KNAW.
More information
Read the full letter online.
