VUB New year’s address: rector Jan Danckaert looks ahead in turbulent times and announces renewed candidacy
Brussels, 5 January 2026 – Today, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) ushers in the new year with a sense of connection and ambition, but also with the necessary seriousness. During the traditional New Year’s address, Rector Jan Danckaert looked back on a year marked by numerous academic and societal highlights, while also dwelling at length on the far-reaching consequences of the budget cuts announced by the Flemish Government in September. These will be felt by the VUB in 2026 and the years that follow.
The rector emphasized that higher education institutions in Brussels are being hit particularly hard. For the VUB, this means a consolidation of approximately 20 million euros. Despite the solidarity shown by the other universities and a number of compensatory measures, the financial outlook remains extremely challenging. The reality of the announced cuts was therefore tangibly present in the room.
“We will have to take measures that no university wants to take,” Jan Danckaert stated. “They understandably create unrest and uncertainty among staff and students.” He promised that the university will provide maximum transparency about the concrete savings trajectory and its impact, in close consultation with the trade unions.
Avoiding a negative spiral
At the same time, the rector warned against allowing the university to slip into a negative spiral. “We must not lose sight of the bigger picture,” he said. “The world around us is changing at a rapid pace. Universities, in Flanders and far beyond, will have to reinvent themselves in the coming years to allow education and research to flourish optimally.”
According to Danckaert, this requires difficult choices and the breaking of taboos, but he pointed out that the VUB has already taken important steps in recent years. Since the start of his term as rector, there has been a strong focus on scaling up, impact and agility. That scaling up, he said, translates into greater societal impact, among other things in fields such as climate science, health research and AI.
In addition to impact, agility remains crucial, Danckaert emphasized. “I already said it four years ago: the VUB must be an agile ship that stays on course even in stormy times. That storm has only grown more intense today.”
In his speech, the rector also expressed a deeper concern about the broader societal signal that, in his view, the budget cuts are sending: “What perhaps affects me most is that what we as a university have always wanted to be – an excellent place for independent education and free research – no longer seems to be a shared and widely supported value in our society. Our foundations as a social and democratic institution, as an internationally oriented university, and as a Dutch-language community anchored in our multilingual capital are under pressure. This is due to the near elimination of funding for non-European students, cuts to study grants and Brussels-related funds that undermine democratization, and additional cuts to fundamental research. This raises a fundamental question: what kind of universities does Flanders still want in the future?”
Rectoral elections in the spring
Finally, Jan Danckaert announced that he will once again stand as a candidate in the rectoral elections this spring. “These are difficult times, but over the past ten years—first as vice-rector and subsequently as rector—I have built up the knowledge, experience and decisiveness needed to help steer this crisis,” he said.
According to Danckaert, four years is too short a period to fully implement a policy plan. “There is still a great deal of work to be done,” he said, referring among other things to study progress, attracting more students to STEM and health-related programmes, and further scaling up the organization of the university.
“I do not believe in a university that is merely the sum of its programmes, research groups and faculties,” he concluded. “The future calls for a central, forward-looking strategy that transcends boundaries, in the interests of our students, our researchers and society. I want to continue to commit myself to our humanist university and its values.”
