New Chair and member of the Supervisory Board of the UG

On 1 September 2020, Mr Johan Remkes will be appointed as Chair of the Supervisory Board of the University of Groningen by Minister Van Engelshoven of Education, Culture and Science. He succeeds Mr Tjibbe Joustra, who will have served two terms as Chair of the Supervisory Board. In addition, Prof. Wim van Saarloos has been appointed as a member of the Supervisory Board. President of the University Jouke de Vries: “These names are music to my ears. Former Minister Remkes and former Academy president Van Saarloos are great assets to our Supervisory Board. I wish them the best of luck.”

Johan Remkes

Johan Remkes (1951) is a Dutch politician and currently deputy Mayor of The Hague. During the 1980s, Remkes was elected to both the Groningen Municipal Council and the Groningen Provincial Council. He was elected to the Dutch House of Representatives in 1993. And he served as Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations between 2002 and 2007. From 2010 until 2019, he was King’s Commissioner in Noord-Holland. Remkes recently hit the headlines in his role as chair of the advisory committee that advised the Cabinet about the problems surrounding the human impact on the nitrogen cycle.

Wim van Saarloos

Wim van Saarloos (1955) is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at Leiden University. Van Saarloos studied physics at Delft University of Technology and was awarded a PhD by Leiden University. After spending a period in the United States of America, Van Saarloos was appointed as a professor at Leiden University in 1991. In 2009, he became full-time director of the Foundation for Fundamental Research into Matter (FOM), after which he returned to Leiden as a professor in 2017. Van Saarloos was also President of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) between June 2018 and June 2020.

About the Supervisory Board

The Supervisory Board is responsible for supervising the governance and management of the UG, as performed by the Board of the University. The current members are: Ms Heleen van Balen, Mr Wietze Reehoorn, Mr Harm Post, and Ms Annette Roeters.