Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Celebrating summer on campus! ☀️

Our annual Déjà VU Festival transformed our shiny new campus square to a festival terrain with a spectacular program:

Live interactive sessions with our leading scientists
🧪Experiments at the Science Fair
🍔Food trucks and the festival market
🎤Karaoke andtThe VU's Got Talent!-show
👥Many familiar faces at our Alumnus Square.. and of course many musical performances!

Thank you to everyone who truly made it a day & night to remember! 💙

The Déjà VU Festival is made possible by: VUvereniging and VU Griffioen.

It’s that time again! 📚 Wishing all our hardworking students success on their exams.

You’ve got this! 💙💪

☕️ Introducing the world’s first coffee fountain on a university campus! 🎉

We're making history with this entirely ecological and sustainable initiative, fueled by fair trade coffee sourced from organic and ecological sources ♻️

The fountain will provide all of our students and staff with a constant supply of caffeine, while functioning as a hub of connection within our community 💙 During exam weeks there will be an extra strong brew flowing through the fountain 🔥

Of course we'll also have plant-based milk available at smaller fountains nearby. Bring your own cup and enjoy complimentary coffee and milk on us! ☕️🥛

Join us next Monday as we lay the first stone and celebrate a future where innovation meets responsibility 🌱💡

Our annual obligatory blossom post! 🌸

Have you spotted the blossoms on our campus yet?

Celebrating 143 years of VU! 🎉

At this year’s Dies Natalis we focused our attention on the power of hidden networks. We talked about how our university can adapt to digitalisation, polarisation, biodiversity loss, and climate change.

The highlights of last night include:

🔬 Professor Toby Kiers unveiled the secrets of underground fungal networks, showcasing global impact with the myconauts team.
🏆 Professor Tima Bansal of Ivy Business was honoured with an honorary doctorate for her expertise in building sustainable networks between academia and the business world.
✍️ Our new Writer-in-Residence Nina P***k delivered a thought-provoking column, adding literary flair to the evening.
💃 Avalon Brown's dance performance depicted networks, symbolising collaboration among VU alumni.

It was an afternoon filled with insights, celebration, and a commitment to building dynamic, responsive academic networks. Here's to another year of excellence at VU! 👩‍🎓🌍

VU turned 143 years old today! 🎉

Here are some facts to commemorate our age:

🎓 Our name was coined by our founders who envisaged a 'free' university, where science and faith wouldn’t be hampered by the secular movement at the end of the 19th century.

🏛️ We started with 3 faculties, but have 9 faculties today.

🏢 VU used to be housed in a canal house located in the center of Amsterdam, but we moved to the Zuidas Business District in the 1970s.

🌸 Our campus includes a fully equipped sport centre, a cinema, two bars, a theatre, an art exhibition space and a botanical garden.

🌍 Diversity, sustainability and entrepreneurship are our three priority areas that are reflected throughout every layer of our university.

What an incredible Opening of the Academic Year! 🎉

We had a star-studded lineup of speakers and thought leaders who inspired us to play, lead, and change the game:

♠️ Ben Tiggelaar gave a lecture on "The Psychology of Playing"
🎤 Aukje Nauta with an interactive talk "Never Pretending Again"
🎥 Lale Gül in a video column "Being Sidelined"
🕹️ Marilieke Engbers in conversation with (former) student council presidents on "Leading the game"
⛹🏻‍♂️ His Royal Highness Constantijn van Oranje was in conversation with Linda van de Burgwal on the topic "Game changing"
🎵 Annemiek van der Ven led a sing-a-long

Highlights of the event included:
🌟 The introduction of our new president of the Executive Board, Margrethe Jonkman.
🎖️ Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema awarded our president Mirjam van Praag with the Frans Banninck Cocq medal. She received this award for her important and tireless commitment to Amsterdam, especially to entrepreneurship in the City of Amsterdam.

We wish everyone a great academic year and we hope to see you at our next event! 🌟

Introduction Days = full campus with happy faces! 🥳

This week we're busy meeting all our new students 💙 Exciting days ahead!

Déjà VU Festival turned our campus into a huge party yesterday! 🎊

During our annual summer festival we welcomed our students, staff, alumni and VUvereniging members to attend an evening full of:

🎵 music
🪩 silent disco
🎤 spoken word
💡 knowledge sessions & talk shows
🧑‍🎓 alumni meet-ups

Thank you to all who attended, and we're already looking forward to the next edition! 🙌

The Déjà VU festival is made possible by: VUvereniging, VU Griffioen and Universitaire Studentenraad VU - USR. We'd like to give a big shout-out to each and everyone who contributed 💙

Our Main Building turned 50! 🎉🎂

Today we're celebrating this milestone with a symposium. We'll take a look back at the past, reflect on the present, and explore what the future holds for our iconic landmark 🏛️

Let's party like it's 1973! 🕺💃

Read more here: http://bit.ly/3nHvlvQ

📸: 1974 vs 2023

We have exciting news to share about our main building! 💙

In our commitment to promoting biodiversity and sustainability in our community, we are thrilled to announce that our building will be painted blue to attract more bees.

🐝 Bees are crucial for the pollination of our plants and the overall health of our ecosystem. By providing a welcoming environment for them, we are doing our part in supporting their population growth and contributing to the health of our planet.

We invite you to join us in our efforts to promote a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly community. 🌱

Update: unfortunately this plan was cancelled on April 1st, 2023 🐸

https://vu.nl/en/news/2023/vu-main-building-stimulates-biodiversity-zuidas

Our favourite sight on campus is back! 🌸

Ready for the weekend 💙

Meet our greatest talents of 2022! 🎉
Last night, during the VU New Year's Gala, some of our students and employees were awarded for their hard work and dedication. Here’s a recap:

🏆 Merel Stroes won Best Bachelor Thesis with her thesis on the effect of improved matching on waiting time in health care.
🏆 Charlotte Parree won Best Master Thesis Award. With her thesis, Charlotte examines a gap in euthanasia legislation for young children.
🏆 Amarylle van Doorn won the StudenTalent Award for her proactive and committed stance when it comes to important social and societal issues.
🏆 Lachezar Yanev won the TeacherTalent Award for his interactive way of teaching. By implementing video and interaction in his methods, he made difficult subjects accessible for students.
🏆 Yvette Taminiau won the Van der Duijn Schouten Teaching Award for taking education at VU to a higher level. By collaborating with external partners, Yvette lets her students apply the subject matter to real life cases and gain professional experience.

This year there were two winners for the Tribute to
Support Staff:

🏆 Hans van den Brink wins supporter of the year. His energy and inspiration have come to define the ambiance of VU. Our community knows and loves Hans!
🏆 Evelyne Griffioen is also our supporter of the year. She always maintains the right measure of care, interest, and cheerful connection. She’s making a difference at VU!

We want to congratulate everyone and thank all nominees for their hard work as well! 💙

You can rewatch the VU New Year’s Gala here:
bit.ly/3wNdh53

Campus square in 1970 vs 2023!

Our VU campus has always been a place of encounter and collaboration, and we're continuously working on improving the infrastructure.

Pictured you see:

🚲 Cars were banned from campus square and made room for bicycle parking.
🌳 Trees and plants make the campus a lot greener than it was 53 years ago.
🏢 On the left you can see our OZW-building (jokingly called 'rode pieper') in its full glory.
💼 The latest addition to the campus, the VU StartHub pavilion, is pictured on the right.

Happy new year! 🎉 Let's make 2023 a great one.

We wish you all happy holidays and a holly jolly Christmas! 🎄

Long study sessions, late nights and snacks: It's exam week! 🙏

2022 is slowly coming to an end. What's your favourite season of the year? 🍁☃️🌸☀️

Two of our students, Parwana Rezai and Dina Bousbaa, won the ECHO award 🏆 This was announced yesterday, during the award ceremony.

Parwana is a student of the Bachelor’s programme Law in Society. She is also an ambassador for refugees from and women in Afghanistan and closely collaborates with the Dutch Refugee Council (VWN). In that role she works on projects by being a campaign lead, volunteering, visiting refugee camps, raising awareness, spreading petitions, giving interviews, engaging in public debates and sharing her own story along the way.

Dina is a fifth-year medical student at VU Amsterdam UMC. Unique to Dina's nomination is that she is not associated with only one specific initiative or project. Dina works for IMC Weekend School, an organization that offers a 2.5 year scholastic programme to children from neighbourhoods who deserve more opportunities. She also arranged her social medicine internship at Stichting Kruispost Amsterdam, which is committed to care for undocumented and homeless people.

ECHO is a non-profit organization dedicated to diversity and inclusion in education and the labour market. The Echo award is a prize awarded to talented students with a non-western background, who distinguish themselves with entrepreneurial attitude, organizational skills, active social involvement and constructive approach to challenges related to exclusion.

Congratulations with this well deserved award, Parwana and Dina! 💙

And just like that it’s the last month of the year!

December has started, a month filled with holidays, resolutions, and reflection. We wish everyone success for their final exams and assignments this year!

Let’s end the year on a high note 💪

Bingo? You will win absolutely nothing 🏆

Our 142nd Dies Natalis was a success! 💙

Yesterday we celebrated the Dies Natalis in honour of our 142nd anniversary. Rector Magnificus Jeroen Geurts opened with his Dies speech, Marileen Dogterom, Marc van Ranst and Jos Akkermans hosted an interesting panel discussion on the future of academic cooperation. Afterwards, Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf and Ionica Smeets presented their plans for a national centrum for science communication and virologist Marc van Ranst was awarded an honorary doctorate.

The theme this year was Recognition & Rewards. Only by working closely in teams with our researchers we can create a more diverse and balanced way of recognizing and rewarding.

Our strides in the area of recognition and rewards focus on the following aspects:

👥 Creating a shift in emphasis from the ‘individual’ to the ‘collective’
💡 Less emphasis on quantitative indicators such as the number of publications
🏅 More attention to performance in other core areas (i.e. education, societal impact, leadership)
💼 Offering academic staff an environment and career paths that facilitate talents and development
⚖️ Better distribution of workload between research, teaching, science communication and management

Ultimately, we aspire to have a new way of recognizing and rewarding that better suits the current tasks of our academics and VU Amsterdam’s mission of taking responsibility for people and the planet by delivering values-driven education, research and knowledge transfer.

We want to thank everyone who contributed to making the Dies such a success! In case you missed it, you can watch it here: http://bit.ly/3OeJudq

It's Health & Wellbeing Week at VU 💙

Physical and mental wellbeing play a crucial role in the personal development and academic performance of students. Throughout the school year, we offer various resources on campus to help students with their mental load, ranging from school psychologists to sleeping pods and a Mindfulnest (as pictured below).

At VU, we want to encourage our students to find a healthy balance between studying, hobbies, leisure, and other activities. Therefore, we dedicate this week to focusing entirely on health and wellbeing.

We organize a variety of workshops on campus this whole week, aside from our usual resources. The activities range from fitness to mindfulness workshops, networking events, and much more.

We wish you all a great week!

Find the full programme here:
https://bit.ly/3UKZjKR

Exams are just around the corner. What's your current study mood? 🥲