Ethical Guidelines

NOG (Netherlands Research School for Gender Studies) Statement on Collaborations with Israeli Institutions and International Corporations Complicit in War Crimes

As a research school committed to global justice around the world, we are steadfast in our belief that research and academia can never be politically neutral. The following statement does not represent the official positions our universities take at this moment, and it also does not speak for individual researchers. It is written as a collective positioning of the extended current NOG Board and concerns all activities the NOG as a research school actively facilitates.

Until conditions merit reconsideration, the NOG will not collaborate with Israeli institutions, including academic ones, and with Israeli and international corporations that are complicit in atrocity crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as identified by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). This decision follows upon the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ Order of 26 January 2024) that found the risk of the state of Israel committing genocide to be plausible and the situation that Palestinians face to be catastrophic with a risk of irreparable harm. It further comes against the backdrop of a continual escalation of war and a political climate in the Netherlands wherein the advocacy of human rights for Palestinians is increasingly criminalised or trivialised, and of continued military actions by the Israeli Defence Force in Gaza that have led to its entire educational infrastructure being destroyed and thousands of teachers, administrators and students being killed in what is being called a ‘scholasticide.’

We uphold the right to academic freedom for all and believe this statement does not conflict with such freedom as it only concerns potential collaborations with the Israeli state, complicit institutions and corporations, and their official representatives. It does not concern individual scholars affiliated with or employed by Israeli academic institutions – it concerns institutional complicity, not individual identity.
As a research school we are committed to following due diligence in collaborating with third parties. As such, we are currently committed to the following guiding principles:

  1. The NOG will not enter collaborations with or invite to any of its activities Israeli state officials or official representatives of Israel-lobby groups or complicit institutions or corporations.
  2. The NOG will not procure services from any corporations that provide materials for or are complicit in the violence.
  3. The NOG will not participate in academic projects or activities organized or sponsored by Israeli academic institutions or the Israeli government
  4.  The NOG will continue to support initiatives by its research community that foster critical knowledge production, debate, and public education about Palestine and Israel.
  5. The NOG will stand in solidarity with Palestinian scholars as well as all scholars who face threats to their academic freedoms because of their stance on Palestine and advocate for their inclusion in scholars at risk schemes.
  6. The NOG will not discriminate against any individual scholars, including those from Israel, when they apply for positions, fellowships, grants or other funding.