2000 - now

• Official university poets (2000)
• Rosalind Franklin Fellowship (2003)
• Supercomputer Stella (2005)
• The LifeLines project (2006)
• Oldest map printed the Netherlands (2014)
• 400 years University of Groningen! (15 mei 2014)

2000: Official university poets

In the academic year 2000-2001 the Universiteitskrant (University Newspaper) introduced the official university poet. By writing poems, published in the university paper, the poet reflected upon university affairs and student life. Rector Doeko Bosscher agreed to donate a few bottles of wine for this project.In the first year, the jury enrolled two university poets: Daniël Dee en Petra Else Jekel. The poem Clear skies, on the left, is by Lilian Zielstra.

2002: Rosalind Franklin Fellowship

The Rosalind Franklin Fellowship promotes the advancement of talented, international, female researchers at the Groningen university. The programme is primarily directed at ambitious women in academia, who have a PhD and aim for a career towards full professorship at the university. The ambitious programme has been running since 2003 at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and since 2007 at the university as a whole.

Rosalind Franklin completed her studies in Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. Her research at Kings College in London was an important contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA. Franklin used X-ray crystallography in her research and when Watson and Crick became aware of Franklin’s photos they immediately recognised the empirical evidence for the double helix structure. Unfortunately, they did not include her in their publications. Franklin died of cancer at the age of 37. Had she survived, she would have become one of the most renowned female scientists of her generation.

2005: Supercomputer Stella

From the 80’s onwards the spread of personal computers and the internet went rapidly and university employees naturally went along in this development. For scientific computations there was still a need for much more powerful machines. In 2005, the university acquired the supercomputer Stella (Supercomputer Technology for Linked Lofar Applications), to, among other things, support Lofar, the biggest radio telescope in the world. This computational miracle, based on the Blue Gene P from IBM, was the fastest computer in Europe when purchased (35,12 billion calculations per second). It is located in the Donald Smits Centre for Information Technology, which gained its name in 2007, as an hommage to one of the pioneers in this field.

2006: The LifeLines project

In 2006, the University of Groningen started with the ambitious Lifelines project, the largest population screening in the world that seeks to find an answer to the question of how we can age healthy. The aim of this project is to track the health of 165.000 people from the north of the Netherlands, split up into three generations, for a period spanning 30 years.  The genetic, (bio-) medical, psychological, and social details, as well as data on lifestyle and environment of this large group of participants will be collected in a biobank. With this biobank, researchers can gain a more detailed insight into the factors that determine whether a person ages healthy and can contribute to the development of an effective diagnosis, prevention, treatment and monitoring of chronic diseases. Watch this video (in Dutch) for more information.

2014: Oldest map printed the Netherlands

Today the university is the guardian of an immense cultural heritage. Even though the university was founded in the 17th century, many achievements dating from before the university’s foundation have been preserved by the institute. One example of such an achievement is the oldest map printed in the Netherlands, which is safely kept in the treasure-house of the University Library.

15 May 2014: 400 years University of Groningen!

In 2014, our University will be 400 years old! Naturally, this is a cause for celebration. A month long celebration! From 15 May until 15 June 2014 Groningen will be immersed in a festive program with the theme For Infinity (4∞). We are going to celebrate, do sports, share knowledge, and experience culture with everyone who cares about the university: alumni, students, residents of the city and the surrounding area, guests of fellow institutions (domestic and international), business, industry and government representatives and everyone else who is interested. Take a look around on the