News - November 13, 2008

AFSG MOVE DEPENDS ON THE CREDIT CRISIS

The chair groups of the Agrotechnology and Food Sciences Group (AFSG) will be moving from the Dreijen to Wageningen Campus – unless the economic crisis turns out to be more serious than expected. Plans for a second education building besides the Forum are going ahead in any case, the executive board agreed last Monday.

The AFSG chair groups at the Dreijen are scheduled to move to the campus in 2013. A new building between the Restaurant of the Future and the Atrium will fulfill the wish to bring university and DLO groups together under one roof. But Aalt Dijkhuizen, chair of the executive board, is keeping an eye on developments. ‘We’re going ahead with plans to move, but the economic crisis could throw a spanner in the works. The budget on Prinsjesdag 2009 will be crucial. If necessary, we can still put the brakes on then.’

The decision to build a second education building is definite, though. The Forum is already too small for the huge increase in student numbers, and some classes are having to be taught at the Dreijen. The new teaching accommodation, which will be on campus on the south side of the Forum, should be ready in 2012. It will be smaller than the Forum but bigger than the Atlas building.

The new building will cost 100 million euros. Wageningen UR will borrow most of this sum, which will temporarily reduce its solvency ratio to 35 per cent. This would go down to 30 per cent if the credit crisis got much worse. The aim is to maintain a long-term solvency ratio of at least 40 per cent.