Accommodation shortage Open access Party Calendar Enough rooms until 2018. | p.4 | Locking horns with Elsevier. | p.12 | All the parties on one poster. | p.16 | RESOURCE For students and employees of Wageningen UR no 3 – 10 September 2015 – 10th Volume Long live the King! Guard of honour on Prince’s Day. | p.24 2 >> labour of love >> SUSANNE + WAR CHILD Susanne Laven, project leader publicity and recruitment, Corporate staff ‘I pay for the food and have a nice evening’ She likes cooking and entertaining. And she thought it was time to start something new. To contribute to a better world. ‘Because I am not very cheered by what’s going on in the world.’ So once a month, Susanne Laven cooks for a living room full of strangers. She provides the food and the diners’ (seven max) contributions go to War Child. Fancy pulling up a chair next time? Check out www.warchild.nl/actie/suus-kookt-voor-war-child. RK / Photo: Guy Ackermans RESOURCE — 10 September 2015 PHOTO COVER: SVEN MENSCHEL >>CONTENTS no 3 – 10th volume >> 8 >> 18 >> 20 344 MILLION DAIRY CAMPUS BUSSEMAKER All Dutch trees have been counted. Construction is in full swing. ‘New students must have been fed up.’ FRIES I grew up in Zeeland Flanders. The bit of the Netherlands that really prefers to call itself Belgian. Most Saturdays I used to cycle to the Westerschelde estuary to look at boats or peer into the bucket of a shivering fi sherman. A breath of AND MORE... fresh air on the dyke. En route I sometimes stopped in the village of Zaamslag. 4 Wageningen has cheap rooms Because in an alley off the village square there was a fritomatic. Nailed to the 6 Disruptive thinking wall of a house. Yellow with red letters. I would gaze at the machine in fascina- 7 The fries machine tion, mouth watering. Every child’s idea of heaven. I was never allowed to put a 10 Claw disorders can be guilder into it. Maybe that is why it is etched in my memory: unsatisfi ed curiosi- bred out ty. A fries machine as a dream come true. This week one was presented on the 11 Reactions on resource-online.nl campus. No smell, no sogginess, just crisp fries obtained via a touchscreen. Even 14 PowerPoint as thesis topic the national news came to have a look. I went along the next day along with a 16 Party Calendar 2015 dozen or so other curious souls. ‘Can anyone tell us where the fries machine is?’ 24 Ceres on Prince’s Day We went in search. Old wine in new skins? Doesn’t matter. A fries machine is 26 Nadine Visser back in the many adults’ idea of heaven too. classroom 29 Meanwhile in ..... Serbia Edwin van Laar >> Smartphone detects illegal growth hormones. | p.9 10 September 2015 — RESOURCE 4 >> news NO MORE ROOM SHORTAGES IN WAGENINGEN • Big increase in supply. • No shortages before 2018. There will be no more room short- ages in Wageningen for a while. Ac- commodation provider Idealis fears it may even have a slight sur- plus of student rooms over the next two years. After years of rising stu- dent numbers and room shortages in Wageningen, the university an- nounced at the end of last year that 150 rooms intended for interna- tional student were unoccupied. Idealis and the university offered these rooms to Dutch students still on the waiting list. In the end only 50 Dutch students took up the offer This student is moving his stuff to the new Javastraat complex. – 100 rooms remained vacant. ‘The accommodation problem did not spring, the university built student while the increase in school leavers room in the next six months. seem to be that acute,’ concludes rooms in Computechnion and the looks set to be 6 or 7 percent. But Idealis will not be building any Idealis director Sylvie Deenen. Javastraat complex was delivered the double-digit increases of the last new accommodation in the next few An update to the Wageningen ac- this week. All in all more than 400 ten years seem to be over. In addi- years now that there are no more commodation market report of Oc- additional rooms. That number will tion, a good 300 students will be acute problems. But according to tober 2014 by Idealis, Wageningen double next year when Campus Pla- leaving Wageningen as Van Hall La- the forecasts, there will be room UR and Wageningen town council za is complete. renstein moves to Velp. shortages again from 2018. shows that there is now an accom- While the supply is growing, the Even so, most fi rst-years contin- AS modation surplus. In the report, increase in the demand for rooms is ue to look for a room in Wagenin- they talk of ‘changed circumstanc- tailing off. The number of interna- gen, despite the abolition of student es’ and forecast a surplus of about tional students was stable last year grants. There are no unoccupied 500 rooms in Wageningen in the while the number of school leavers rooms for international students at There is now a fi lm next two to three years. coming to Wageningen to study the moment and the waiting list last about the Javastraat on There are reasons for this, says rose by only 1.5 percent, compared month with students actively look- resource-online.nl Deenen. Firstly there has been a big with 15 percent in previous years. ing for a room through Idealis was increase in the supply. Idealis com- The number of international stu- as long as last year, at about 900 stu- pleted the Bellostraat complex this dents has grown again this year dents. Deenen says they will all get a WAGENINGEN HAS CHEAP STUDENT ROOMS pricey self-contained accommoda- student units have been completed Average rent in university towns • Only Enschede is slightly tion. in the past fi ve years. Several thou- cheaper. Wageningen and Enschede have sand units will be added over the • Amsterdam tops the lot. the cheapest rooms of the nine uni- next few years, but these will most- versity towns. Amsterdam is the ly be relatively high-priced rooms most expensive. with their own kitchen. Corporations Private sector Enschede 288.71 298.75 Student accommodation Wagenin- The analysis also shows that Students renting a room in stu- Wageningen 332.52 297.60 gen is distinctly cheaper than room shortages are most acute in dent houses have not been eligible Eindhoven 363.09 348.91 rooms in other university towns, it the big cities in the west and that a for rent rebates since 1997 but stu- Utrecht 366.54 428.86 seems from a comparison by inves- lot of new student accommodation dents in self-contained accommo- Groningen 366.92 367.58 tigative journalists at Yournalism. has been built nationally. The in- dation can apply for such rebates. Rotterdam 453 431.24 nl, commissioned by Resource. crease has been mainly in the more That makes the self-contained op- Nijmegen 474.81 383.20 Lots of new rooms are being built costly self-contained accommoda- tion often no more expensive, or Delft 485.24 358.44 in nearly all university towns, but tion, for which students can get a even cheaper than a room in a stu- Amsterdam 491.78 568.41 mainly in the form of relatively rent rebate. In total, 35,000 new dent house. AS RESOURCE — 10 September 2015 news << 5 400 SOLAR PANELS ON SECOND SPORTS HALL OLUMN|STIJN that will enable the cost of the comfortably within that © • Helped by subsidy scheme. solar panels to be recouped in budget,’ says Henri ten Kloost- • Roof of existing sports hall eight years. The government er, head of De Bongerd Sports not strong enough. makes up the price per kWh Centre. Then they had to wait Premium sandals generated to 13 cents, doing so and see whether the solar pan- There is fear of a rift. Staff of our DLO re- for 15 years up to a maximum els would be approved too. ‘But search institutes (Alterra, LEI etc.) still don’t The new sports hall will have of 100,000 kWh per year. At we had always allowed for the have a new CAO, so DLO staff salaries are more than 400 solar panels in- present Wageningen UR buys possibility of solar panels on starting to lag behind those of university stalled on its roof. They will be electricity at about 4.5 cents per the roof in the design for the staff. Some are fearful of a split between fi rst- able to produce up to 100,000 kWh, so the subsidy is 8.5 sports hall. If it hadn’t worked class (university) and second-class (DLO) kWh a year — enough to supply cents, explains Van der Wal. out this time, we could have in- staff. the entire building with elec- In March, the Executive stalled them at a later date,’ I don’t see the problem really. Don’t assess- tricity. In November last year, Board approved the construc- says Ten Klooster. ‘I’d wanted ments based on individual excellence, H in- energy coordinator Michiel Van tion of the hall, which is budg- solar panels on the current dexes and tenure track amount to the same der Wal managed to get a subsi- eted at 5.4 million euros. ‘The sports hall for years but the roof thing? By offi cially categorizing staff as fi rst- dy through the SDE+-scheme tender process has let us keep isn’t strong enough.’ KG and second-class, we can surely give that healthy competition an extra boost.