Refugees from Ukraine

Refugee students are in principle welcome to apply for a guest student status, to attend relevant and appropriate English spoken classes and courses that are offered in the Faculty of Medical Sciences.

Depending on availability, refugee students are invited to send their resume’s and transcripts and look for the options in the course catalogue: Ocasys: Course Catalog (rug.nl), section Medical Sciences / UMCG.

Note: Though the majority of requests that we have received so far concern medical training in the strict sense (MD), the Faculty of Medical Sciences / UMCG The Faculty of Medical Sciences also houses a a couple of other programmes: Dentistry (BSc and MSc, in Dutch), Human Movement Sciences, Sport Sciences, Clinical Psychosocial Epidemiology (MSc, research track) and Molecular Medicine and Innovative Treatment (MSc, research track).

Though there are limitations and criteria, students in for instance Dentistry may apply for a course of one of the other programmes of the Faculty of Medical Sciences / UMCG.

Refugee students are welcome to apply for a research internship. The UMCG has numerous research departments and institutes covering a wide variety (if not all) medical disciplines, so almost any research project can be accommodated. Please see here for further information: Research for the future of health - UMCG - Research (umcgresearch.org).

Please send your letter of motivation, (mentioning the field of research and why you are interested in doing research in this particular field), and your CV to international.office umcg.nl.

You request will be handled by one of our case managers.

Clinical internships

Clinical activities are in principle unavailable, with two exceptions:

Exception 1: refugee students with good command in Dutch and in the last semester of medical training in Ukraine (missing max. 4 rotations/electives/internships, max. 5 months) are welcome to apply for Dutch spoken equivalent activities in the UMCG or affiliated hospitals, provided that their home institutions will formally and content wise accept these as substituting these missed activities.

Exception 2: refugee students that were very close to graduating as MD in Ukraine – missing max. two rotations, electives or internships, 2/3 months in total – are welcome to apply for English spoken equivalent activities in the UMCG or affiliated hospitals, provided that their home institutions will formally and content wise accept these as substituting these missed activities.

So please send us a statement from your university saying that you will have to do a maximum of two rotations and that doing them in the UMCG will allow you to graduate. Also send us a motivation letter mentioning the one or two disciplines of your preference. You can mail the documents to international.office umcg.nl. Your application will be handled by one of our case managers.

Mind that we will only handle requests from students staying in the Netherlands.

All documents must be in English

(Note: For both exceptions acceptance cannot be guaranteed, availability depends on department/capacity constraints.)

Refugee PhD students are also welcome to apply for a temporary and voluntary research internship.

The UMCG has numerous research departments and institutes covering a wide variety (if not all) medical disciplines, so almost any research project can be accommodated. Please see here for further information: Research for the future of health - UMCG - Research (umcgresearch.org) and Graduate School of Medical Sciences (groningenbiomed.com).

For refugee medical students from Ukraine we started with a buddy initiative, with the purpose to provide social support. The idea is to match one refugee student with one Groningen medical student, to simply undertake joint activities like having a coffee, give a personal tour through the city, introduce you in study life in Groningen, see a bit of the country side, maybe go for a swim in the Hoornse Lake in summer, exchange study experiences etc.

Besides that your buddy can help out in minor practical matters for which students are the best source, like where to buy a second hand bike, where to do your groceries (market!), where to hang out (Noorderplantsoen!) etc.

Refugee students that are interested to be matched with a student buddy are welcome to apply at buddies.for.refugees ucmg.nl.

Note: the buddy project is only for informal social purposes. Student buddies are not equipped to handle traumatized students or other issues that require professional help.

Some Ukrainian employees of the UMCG stepped forward to help out in any language issue or other difficulty in which their support could be helpful. If you think you might benefit from this kind of service, please let us know via international.office umcg.nl, so we can try and match you to one of these volunteers.

The University and city of Groningen offer many other options to undertake activities during you involuntary stay here. It is impossible to give you the full overview of possibilities, but maybe it is helpful to mention a few, just to get you started:

Language Centre | University of Groningen (rug.nl)

Forum Groningen

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