UvA entered into six new partnerships with Israel during the Gaza conflict
After the start of the conflict in Gaza, the UvA entered into six new partnerships with Israel. Four of these were established after the large pro-Palestinian demonstrations in May 2024.
The UvA started six new research partnerships after the start of the conflict in Gaza on 7 October 2023. This is evident from data available on the European Commission’s official website for research projects. A spokesperson for the UvA has confirmed that the partnerships were established, after they had been reviewed by the UvA’s ethics advisory committee.
The first collaboration began shortly after 7 October 2023, on 1 January 2024. In May of that year, large-scale occupations of the UvA campus took place. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators demanded an end to collaborations with Israeli institutions, but talks with the UvA board came to nothing. After those protests, the UvA entered into four new collaborations with Israel, according to an EU website.
European infrastructure for Rydberg Quantum Computing.
01-10-2022.
Israeli partner: Q.M. Technologies Ltd.
Deep Programmability and Secure Distributed Intelligence for Real-Time End-to-End 6G Networks. 01-01-2023.
Israeli partner: Mellanox Technologies Ltd.
States’ Practice of Human Rights Justification.
01-03-2023.
Israeli partner: University of Haifa.
Machine Learning for Sciences and Humanities.
01-07-2023.
Israeli partner: Weizman Institute of Science.
Generating Voluntary Compliance Across Doctrines and Nations.
01-11-2023.
Israeli partner: Bar-Ilan University.
Mobility Justice for All: Framing Safer, Healthier and Happier Streets.
01-01-2024.
Israeli partner: Technion University and the Municipality of Haifa.
Continuum of Trust: Increased Path Agility and Trustworthy Device and Service Provisioning.
01-10-2024.
Israeli partner: Mellanox Technologies Ltd.
Modelling the Biochemistry of Terpene Synthases.
01-11-2024.
Israeli partner: Bar-Ilan University.
01-03-2025.
Israeli partner: Technion University.
Enhancing Europe’s Readiness for Managing Fall Armyworm, an Invasive Pest Threat.
01-06-2025.
Israeli partners: The Agricultural Research Organisation of Israel and Sapir Academic College.
Ten collaborations
All collaborations involving EU funds can be found on the website cordis.europa.eu, run by the European Commission. A search using fixed tags will yield a complete list (see box) of current projects involving the UvA and an Israeli partner, Cordis said in a message to Folia.
In total, the UvA now has ten official research collaborations with Israeli institutions, exclusively through EU funds, confirms a spokesperson for the UvA. All ten collaborations involve parties from several countries affiliated with the EU fund, including one or more partners from Israel. On 20 June this year, the UvA decided to stop starting new research collaborations involving Israeli institutions. The last ongoing project will end in 2029.
Bar-Ilan, Technion and Haifa
One of the six collaborations after 7 October 2023 is with the controversial Bar-Ilan University. In May this year, Tilburg University already severed ties with that university. After 7 October, two UvA research projects were also started in collaboration with the controversial Technion University. TU Eindhoven (TU/e) suspended its ties with that university in June. According to the universities in Brabant, Bar-Ilan and Technion have close ties with the Israeli army.
The University of Amsterdam also has a European project with the University of Haifa. Earlier this year, Erasmus University and Utrecht University severed all research ties with that Israeli institution.
“No new collaborations”
In June 2025, there was another large occupation of the campus. Talks broke down again, but shortly afterwards, the UvA agreed not to enter into any new collaborations funded by European funds. According to the Cordis website, the UvA has adhered to this agreement to date.
In March of this year, the UvA also ended its exchange partnership with The Hebrew University. The ethics committee that recommended this has been evaluating the exchange with Tel Aviv University since the protests in June. In May of this year, Radboud University Nijmegen terminated its partnerships with Tel Aviv University.
Human rights violations
The four projects after May 2024 have also all been reviewed by the Ethics Committee on Collaboration with Third Parties, according to a spokesperson for the UvA. The UvA assesses each collaboration separately (according to the university, on a “country-neutral” basis).
“The committee has advised that risk-mitigating measures be taken in these collaborations,” says the UvA spokesperson. “Such as excluding direct data exchange between the UvA and partners from Israel. And the condition that UvA research groups within the partnership with different countries do not collaborate directly with partners from Israel within the same work packages.”
“We cherish the freedom to collaborate,” says the UvA spokesperson, “but we do not want collaborations to inadvertently contribute to human rights violations, for example. With the current halt on research collaborations, we are sending a signal to the European Commission that research and debate on possible sanctions against Israel are of great importance.”
When this article was published, it was mistakenly stated that there were five projects. The editors had miscounted; there are actually six.
