In late 2019, the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR) issued Recommendations for implementing a human rights assessment at the Flemish universities, building on the pioneering work at Ghent University.

The human rights assessment (HRA) applies to universities’ collaboration with external partners. That may be a university partner (central and decentralised units) or a non-university partner (institutions for research, education and services, the public and private sector), in bilateral or multilateral forms of cooperation. The HRA only applies to collaborations that commit the Flemish university as an institution, through a formal agreement. Individual or informal collaboration – such as guest lecturing; conference attendance; PhD supervision; co-publishing – is not covered.

The HRA covers at least two aspects, that is, the partner(s) in the cooperation and the activities of the cooperation. The assessment of partners is required ‘irrespective of the activities that would be carried out in cooperation with the partner.’ (p. 12). With regard to the partner assessment, the HRA focuses on ‘serious and/or systematic human rights violations’ by the partner. As to the activities, every human rights violation is to be considered.

When a human rights risk is detected, an assessment is made of both the positive and negative impact a new collaboration may have. If, on balance, ‘the cooperation may have more positive than negative consequences for the human rights situation, then it may be advisable to actually continue these, provided that a follow-up procedure (‘monitoring’) is put in place’ (p. 22). A dialogue is always envisaged. If the human rights risk relates to a partner, this may lead to the exclusion of that partner. If it relates to an activity, an adjustment or removal of that activity is recommended. In the alternative, the Flemish university may withdraw from the partnership.

The HRA takes place as early as possible in the preparatory process of a formal agreement. Three stages are envisaged: screening, scoping and conclusions. Screening is undertaken by those who initiate the collaboration (staff, support service, decentralised unit). Scoping (a more thorough examination) and conclusions are assigned to a university’s ‘contact point for human rights’.

The Flemish practice

Except for Ghent University, the Flemish universities’ human rights commissions have so far only dealt with collaborations with Israeli entities. Assessment of multilateral collaboration, in particular in the context of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, has been very challenging and led to divergent results. Ghent University decided to discontinue collaboration with Israeli partners in 13 multilateral collaborations with European funding and has initiated its withdrawal. VUB successfully withdrew from one, but three continue, among which one with an Israeli ministry. The University of Antwerp decided to continue ongoing EU funded projects, unless its human rights commission (MiHRS) would assess the collaboration negatively. In practice, collaboration has been continued or even initiated despite a negative MiHRS advice. KULeuven’s human rights commission decided not to end ongoing collaboration with Israeli universities (often a part of Horizon Europe consortia). A new Horizon Europe project with the involvement of an Israeli university was allegedly started on 1 March 2025. UHasselt too continued European funded collaborations in which one or more Israeli universities were involved after screening by its Human Rights Commission.

At Ghent University, experience since 2017 shows that when collaborations cannot take place or need to be stopped as a result of the HRA, the reason is usually not the expected impact of the project, but in almost all cases the human rights record of the partner. The separate assessment of each partner is a principled choice of the model, inspired by the business and human rights framework. Yet the extreme nature of the human rights violations in Gaza caused many Ghent University students and staff – in particular those involved in a solidarity ‘occupation’ of a university building- to reject that choice, and argue instead for a country-based boycott.

The mobilisation around Gaza also showed the need to communicate more about the results of the HRA, both internally and externally.

Together with the inconsistent outcomes of the HRA at the five Flemish universities, these challenges that were highlighted by the Gaza crisis, are expected to result in further improvement to these young and learning models of human rights screening.