Ministerie van Justitie, Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst

On 12 October 2005, the European 'Directive on a specific procedure for admitting third-country nationals for the purposes of scientific research' (Directive 2005/71/EC) was adopted. This Directive facilitates the admission and mobility of scientific researchers from outside of the EU, EEA and Switzerland who plan to stay in the Netherlands for more than three months. With the publication of the necessary amendments to the Aliens Decree and the Regulation on Aliens on 12 October 2007, the Directive was officially implemented in Dutch legislation. The Directive has however not yet been fully implemented in practice. The aim is to commence implementation as soon as possible. As soon as this is the case, a notice will of course be published on this Internet site.

Summary
This Directive introduced a new purpose of stay on the basis of which researchers who are not nationals of an EU or EEA Member State or Switzerland are able to come to the Netherlands in order to carry out scientific research. Any research institution that wishes to bring these researchers to the Netherlands within the context of this Directive must be granted recognised status in advance.

The most important features of this new purpose of stay are:

• The researcher does not require a work permit (for non EU subjects); 
• A guest agreement is concluded between the research institution and the researcher, however a contract of employment is not required; 
• These researchers are subject to flexible rules with regard to mobility within the territory of the EU. For instance, holders of a residence permit for researchers in accordance with this Directive issued by another EU Member State are exempt from the MVV requirement (requirement for a Provisional Residence Permit) in the Netherlands. This also applies to the family members of researchers.  

Procedure
Any research institution that wishes to bring a researcher to the Netherlands within the context of this Directive must have recognised status. This applies to both public and private research institutions. The following public research institutions have recognised status by law:

• Any public research institution that uses UFO codes for researchers in paid employment; 
• Any public research institution included in the Appendix to the Higher Education and Research Act [Wet op het Hoger Onderwijs en wetenschappelijk onderzoek].

Private institutions must submit an application for recognised status to the IND.


Before they are able to take advantage of the scheme for scientific researchers, both public and private research institutions must inform the IND of their intention to do so using a registration form. Private research institutions can also use this form to submit an application for recognised status. Certain information is required for this purpose. 

Once this information has been processed and the IND has approved the application for recognised status, the research institutions will be provided with the necessary application forms for individual scientific researchers in digital format. 

Important!
As soon as the registration form and, if necessary, an application for recognised status from the research institution is available, a notice to this effect will be published on this Internet site. Once this has taken place, further detailed information regarding the conditions of admission and the procedure will also be provided.