The Cabinet is going to cut the number of civil servants and advisory councils. This will mean the end of the Adviesraad voor het Wetenschaps- en Technologiebeleid (Advisory Council for Science and Technology Policy; AWT). The Onderwijsraad (Education Council) can stay. Says a report from Minister Guusje ter Horst of the Interior. There will be no forced redundancies, but the government wants to cut eleven thousand jobs in the end. All kinds of advisory councils are being joined or cancelled. How things will be fleshed out exactly is a matter of the future. Maybe a new council will take over matters from the AWT, but it will not have a position for permanent members; it is alleged to get a ‘flexible’ crew. The Lower House still needs to approve the proposals. The latest AWT advice was about the outline of the science and innovation policy. It said that in the coming years the Netherlands should in particular invest in free research at universities, but at the same time in strong clusters of enterprises. The Ministry of OCW (Education, Culture and Science) itself will have to make about eight hundred employees redundant. So far it has not been decided who exactly will have to go. (HOP)