The decision to accept more refugees into study programmes was made on Wednesday evening after consultation with education minister Jet Bussemaker, according to Nu.nl. The institutions will remove as many obstacles as possible for refugee students.

Among those obstacles is the fact that refugees do not have a DigiD, which is one of the requirements if a person intends to study at an applied sciences or research university. A solution to that problem is currently being sought.

More language lessons are also being given and refugees are being informed where their diplomas attained in their home countries can be assessed.

Along with Bussemaker, university association VSNU, the Central Organ for accommodation of Asylum-seekers (COA) and UAF, a foundation for refugee students, were also involved in the decision.

Higher education news agency HOP says that the gathering was an initiative of Susana Menéndez, a committee member of The Hague University of Applied Sciences. She herself fled from Argentina and studied in the Netherlands.

The RUG is also an active member of Scholars at Risk (SAR), a worldwide organisation which helps researchers who are threatened because of their ideas, research or social position to find a temporary, safe place of work.