‘Making Connections’ during the opening of the Academic Year

The official opening of the 407th academic year of the University of Groningen took place on the afternoon of Monday 31 August 2020. Due to the coronavirus, the ceremony was the first live-streamed version, filmed from the Academy Building and featuring Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Sigrid Kaag as the keynote speaker. With the theme ‘Making Connections’, Rector Magnificus Cisca Wijmenga highlighted the importance of connections within the academic community but also with the world around us, especially in times of the coronavirus.

There was no stately parade of professors, board members and student organizations in the city centre this year, and no large academic ceremony with hundreds of attendees in the Martinikerk. Instead, we held a public online ceremony filmed from the Aula, featuring a keynote speech by Minister Sigrid Kaag and the awarding of the Alumnus of the Year prize to Dr Sander de Hosson. He is receiving the award for the incisive way in which he calls for attention for the emotional side of palliative care and for making death a topic for discussion amongst medical staff, starting during their training. In ‘corona talks’, students and researchers took a glance back at the past few months, after which the new UG poet-in-residence was announced.

Programme, from 2–2.30 p.m.

• Opening speech, ‘Making Connections’, by Prof. Cisca Wijmenga, Rector Magnificus
• Alumnus of the Year 2019 award ceremony for Sander de Hosson, pulmonologist
• Speech by Sigrid Kaag, Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation
• ‘Corona talks’ by students and academics
• Poem by the new UG poet-in-residence 2020-2021
• Ending of ceremony by the Rector Magnificus

The ceremony was broadcasted live at www.rug.nl/opening and via the University of Groningen YouTube channel.