Compensation for board activities UU

Compensation for board activities is intended, according to the law, as compensation for potential study delay of individual board members. If you are proposing to award a student board member the maximum grant of €4250, you are essentially stating that the person in question is expected to fall behind in their studies by a whole year. They will then be able to meet (in whole or in part) the expenses they incur as a result of falling behind. UU and HU do not check whether student board members actually use the money for costs resulting from their study delay. Student board members are themselves responsible for this.

Therefore, one board member should not receive all the money to distribute among their fellow members. We advise against this, as it results in endless arguments every year. Once again, this is the responsibility of each individual student board member.

Basically, the procedure is this:

• Step 1: The board of a student organisation determines who may apply for compensation. The board then awaits step 2.
• Step 2: In mid-August, UU sends an email to every student organisation listed on the Appendix. The email contains an Excel file. This is needed for step 3.
• Step 3: The board completes the Excel file, separately for UU and for HU, stating which students may receive compensation and for which position. The board also states the level of compensation for each position. Boards are advised to nominate only those students who meet the conditions (otherwise the money will be lost). The board returns the Excel file to UU.
• Step 4: UU receives the Excel file and sends an invitation by email to the individual UU board members who have been nominated to apply for an individual grant via OSIRIS-ZAAK. If a board member may apply for compensation for board activities of €4250, they can state in OSIRIS-ZAAK whether they wish to make use of the tuition free board year (Collegegeldvrij besturen).
• Step 5: Each individual board member makes the necessary arrangements for being able to receive the grant themselves (such as enrolment/re-enrolment, graduation postponement, etc.).
• Step 6: The Executive Board issues a formal decision on whether or not to award the grant.

Read the detailed step-by-step plan for an explanation of the above procedure. (in Dutch)

Rule number 1 is that your student organisation must be eligible for compensation for board activities. The Appendix (find here) contains an overview of eligible organisations.
Rule number 2 is that only students who meet the conditions of the Compensation for board activities grants scheme (Regeling Bestuursbeurzen) are eligible for compensation for board activities. Article 4 paragraph 1 lists the conditions that each individual board member should meet, in principle.

• Detailed explanation of the 2023-2024 Compensation for board activities grants scheme. (in Dutch)
• The Compensation for board activities grants scheme (Regeling Bestuursbeurzen) can be found here.

PLEASE NOTE! If it emerges before or during verification that a prospective board member does not meet the conditions, compensation for board activities will not be granted, or will be revoked, as the case may be.  We see this particularly with UU students who do not have a bachelor’s degree after 5 years or master’s students who started a UU master’s via HBO and a premaster.

If in doubt mail to: bestuursbeurs@uu.nl. Mention your student number, organisation and the amount you will receive in board scholarship in 23-24.

Please note: if a board member quits the board mid-term, this board scholarship may not be redistributed, unless there is demonstrable force majeure as judged by the educational institution. In this case, have the chairman/chairman contact UU at bestuursbeurs@uu.nl.

Tuition-free board year is a special facility that is included in the law. Only students who receive a grant of €4250 can make use of this special facility. There are two variants:

OLD style: you are not registered at UU.
NEW style: you are registered at UU, but you do not pay tuition fees.

Read more information about tuition-free governance here. There are also disadvantages to this special facility.

Postponement of graduation is a special facility of the UU. Can you graduate, but do you want to postpone this to receive a board grant? Then you can request the Examination Board of your study program to postpone graduation on the basis of a board position for which you can receive a board grant of at least € 425. But watch out:

• Check carefully whether you continue to comply with article 4 paragraph 1 under c of the Administrative Grants Regulations that you are registered for an extra year for your bachelor’s or master’s degree.
• You may graduate in your board year, but you must then remain registered for the rest of your board year and pay the tuition fees yourself to keep your grant.

There is one exception to this: if you are going to board without tuition fees, you are NOT allowed to graduate during your board year. So also not on August 31, 2025. What is possible?

• You must request a postponement of graduation up to and including September 2025;
• You cannot formally graduate until September 2025. This can cause problems with your registration for a master as of September 1, 2025!
• Check with the admissions committee of your master whether this is allowed.
• In addition, in order to graduate for the bachelor’s degree, you must re-register for that bachelor’s degree in 2025-2026 and pay tuition fees up to and including the month in which you graduate. As soon as you have graduated you can deregister for that bachelor.
• Have you postponed your master’s degree? Then you have to re-register in September 2025, pay tuition fees again (yourself) and then you can only graduate.
• More information about postponing graduation can be found on the UU website.

The minister has ended the experiment of flex-study from 1 September 2023. Utrecht University has made an arrangement through the Profileringsfonds. This allows de facto flex-study to continue in 2023-2024. By 2024-2025, flexstudy will no longer be possible.

Here you can find more information.

• Praktijkvoorbeelden Bestuursaanvragen (PDF/ casuïstiek)
• Presentatie ‘algemene voorlichting bestuursbeurzen’ (2024)
• Presentatie ‘collegegeldvrij besturen’ (2024)
• Ask advice from our student deans via bestuursbeurs@uu.nl