Established 1614 (1614) Rector Prof. Elmer Sterken Province Groningen Phone +31 50 363 9111 | President Prof. Sibrand Poppema Academic staff 5,608 employees Total enrollment 28,756 (2016) Founder Ubbo Emmius | |
Motto in English "The word of the Lord is a light for our feet" Type Public research university Address 9712 CP Groningen, Netherlands Motto Verbum domini lucerna pedibus nostris ("The word of the Lord is a light for our feet", la) Undergraduate tuition and fees 2,006 EUR (2017), International tuition: 8,200 EUR (2017) Notable alumni Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Wim Duisenberg, Wubbo Ockels, Job Cohen, Pim Fortuyn Similar Hanze University of Applie, University of Amsterdam, Utrecht University, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Radboud University Nijmegen Profiles |
The university of groningen the student centric university
The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; Dutch: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a public research university in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. The university was founded in 1614 and is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands as well as one of its largest. Since its inception more than 200,000 students have graduated. It is a member of the distinguished international Coimbra Group of European universities.
Contents
- The university of groningen the student centric university
- Studying science engineering at the university of groningen
- History
- Facts and figures
- Faculties
- Research schools centres and institutes
- Graduate schools
- Notable alumni
- References
In April 2013, according to the results of the International Student Barometer, the University of Groningen, for the third time in a row, has been voted the best university of the Netherlands. In 2014 the university celebrated its 400th anniversary.
The University of Groningen has ten faculties, nine graduate schools, 27 research centres and institutes, and more than 175 degree programmes.
Studying science engineering at the university of groningen
History
The founding of the University in 1614 – at that time still a college of higher education – was an initiative taken by the Regional Assembly of the city of Groningen and the Ommelanden, or surrounding region. There were four faculties – Theology, Law, Medicine, and Philosophy.
The coat of arms of the university was confirmed by the States of the City and County of Groningen in 1615. It consists of the provincial arms, charged with an open book inscribed with the abbreviated words VER/BVM/DNI LV/CER/NA, short for Verbum Domini Lucerna Pedibus Nostris. The shield is surmounted by a golden crown of five leaves and four pearls.
The first 75 years of its existence were very fruitful for the University with about 100 students enrolling every year. Almost half of the students and lecturers came from outside the Netherlands – the first Rector Magnificus, Ubbo Emmius, came from East Frisia in modern-day Germany, for instance – but at the same time there was already a close relationship between the University and the city and the surrounding region.
The development of the University came to a standstill at the end of the seventeenth and during the eighteenth century because of theological differences of opinion, a difficult relationship with the Regional Assembly and political problems that included the siege of the city by ‘Bommen Berend’ in 1672. On average two to three hundred students were registered with the University at any one time during this period. Petrus Camper, though, was a shining academic example during the second half of the eighteenth century and was famous far beyond the city limits as an anatomist, a fighter against rinderpest and the founder of the first outpatient’s clinic for surgical medicine.
Opportunities and threats followed on each other’s heels during the nineteenth century. In 1815, at the same time as Leiden and Utrecht, the University gained recognition as a national college of higher education, but this was followed by discussions about closure. The situation improved markedly when a new main university building, the Academiegebouw, was constructed in 1850, a building that was largely financed by the people of Groningen. This made the fire that completely destroyed this building in 1906 even more poignant.
In the meantime, the Higher Education Act of 1876 had radically improved the position of the University, which was renamed the "Rijksuniversiteit Groningen" (RUG). Teaching now took place in Dutch as well as in Latin and the University was given a research as well as an educational duty. This laid the foundations for the present research university.
The University of Groningen developed apace during the first decades of the twentieth century. The number of faculties and courses grew steadily while the number of students showed an explosive growth. When the University celebrated its first 300 years in 1914 there were 611 registered students; this had already grown to 1000 by 1924. After a drop back during the Depression, and in particular during the Second World War, the number of students grew rapidly from 1945 to reach 20,000 in 1994. At the present time there are about 30,000 students registered at the University of Groningen with the number of foreign students again growing steadily, and following the tradition set by the first Rector Magnificus, the number of German students and researchers has grown strongly in recent years.
In 2016 the Dutch chemist Ben Feringa, who worked most of his career at the university, won the Nobel prize for his work on molecular motors.
Facts and figures
Key facts and figures about the University of Groningen are:
The University of Groningen is in the top 3 of European research universities in the fields of: Ecology, Material Sciences, Chemistry and Astronomy. Other strong research groups are in: Nanoscience, Physics, Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Medical Sciences, Neurosciences, Sociology, Philosophy, Theology, Archaeology and Arts. Every year more than 5,000 research publications go to print and an average of 260 PhD students are awarded their PhD degree.
The university's Center for Information Technology (CIT) houses an IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer and data center of Target used by the LOFAR project as well as a Virtual Reality and 3D-visualisation center.
Faculties
The University of Groningen is organized in ten faculties that offer programmes and courses in the fields of humanities, social sciences, law, economics and business, spatial sciences, life sciences, and natural sciences and technology. Each faculty (cf., College in the USA or School in Europe) is a formal grouping of academic degree programmes, schools and institutes, discipline areas, research centres, and/or any combination of these drawn together for educational purposes. Each faculty offers Bachelor's, Master's, PhD, and Exchange programmes, while some also offer short certificate courses.
Research schools, centres and institutes
Humanities and Social Sciences
Law
Economics & Business
Life Sciences
Science & Technology
Graduate schools
The University of Groningen’s Graduate Schools are organized somewhat different from its international counterparts. The main difference is that the Graduate Schools do not contain all Master’s programmes; Graduate Schools manage and facilitate the two-year Master's programmes: top master's degree programmes and Research master's degree programmes.
Notable alumni
Notable alumni of the University of Groningen include: