President's Journal

Professor Sibrandes Poppema, President of the Board of the University of Groningen, has been nominated Honorary Consul of the Republic of Korea. Today, Thursday 12 April, the official inauguration by H.E. Key Cheol Lee, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea, took place in the Academy Building of the University.

This week starts in the usual way with the Board of the University meeting in the morning. In the afternoon I attend a meeting at the Residence of the Canadian ambassador in The Hague, where John van de Pol, on behalf of INCAS3, and Prof. Wilson, on behalf of Saskatchewan, sign an MOU regarding collaboration on the use of sensor technology for improved efficiency of heavy oil extraction.

The flight from Ulaan Bataar to Incheon airport is with Mongolian Airlines. The first thing to be noticed in Seoul is that the infrastructure has further improved since two years ago and is now clearly better than in the Netherlands.

The shortest route to Ulan Bator is to take Aeroflot via Moscow. During the 3 hours at Sheremetyevo airport, I come across a front-page article in The Moscow Times on Skolkovo and MIT. Bator turns out to have a small airport with one gate, despite the fact that there are around 1 million people in this capital of a huge country with just over 3 million inhabitants.

Finally some time again to write after a very busy period since October last year. Our new board member Jan de Jeu has arrived, and even after a month it’s clear that our diaries are loosening up a little bit again.

In September I paid a short visit to China to officially sign a cooperation agreement and open the University of Groningen European Studies Center at Tsinghua University, a 100-year-old university that is generally considered to be the number one university in China.

On Wednesday 28 September, the Groningen Centre of Energy Law (GCEL) celebrated its fifth anniversary with the conference ‘Five Years of Energy Law in Groningen – Academics meet Practice’. The GCEL was praised by keynote speaker Philip Lowe, Director-General for Energy of the European Commission, and Prof. Sibrand Poppema, President of the Board of the University of Groningen.

Sibrand Poppema is optimistic about the future of the University of Groningen. ‘My expectations are positive’, says the President of the Board of the University in an interview with the local TV channel OOG. ‘I expect that despite the cutbacks, we will be able to continue to grow and to improve our quality in the fields of teaching and research.’

The Vicepresident of the Board of the University Prof. Koos Duppen passed away on 27 May 2011 in his home town of Kropswolde. Koos Duppen was 58.

Sunday morning I travel to Copenhagen for the ASEMME (Asia-Europe Meeting for Ministers of Education). I’m part of the delegation of our ministry, on behalf of VSNU, the Association of Universities in the Netherlands, mainly because the next meeting of university rectors and presidents will be held in Groningen in 2012. I also meet with Helen Chua Balderama, who will visit Groningen in the coming days to talk about the preparations for the programme and the facilities and budget. On Sunday I also take part in the senior officials’ meeting and it is interesting to see how after a long process the final wording of the joint ministers’ declaration for the next day is hammered out.

In addition to business as usual, Tuesday evening we have one of our regular meetings between the boards of the University Medical Center and the University. Among other things, we discuss large-scale projects such as LifeLines, ERIBA, the proton therapy project, SPRINT and CMI, as well as the various meetings with the teams of the top research areas.

Friday morning, and don’t forget that’s the equivalent of Sunday here, we head out with six four-wheel drive cars into the desert southwest of Riyadh. Jurgen Bartelink of the Dutch embassy has rounded up a number of his friends here for his last and our first drive into the desert. I’m in a car with John, who is the director of the stock exchange here in Riyadh.

On Sunday morning really early, it is time to head for Schiphol to fly to Riyadh with a change of flight in Paris. The delegation from the University of Groningen is sponsored by the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), who have invited delegations from the top universities in the world, including the Holland Arab Education Consortium (HAEC) that is lead by the University of Groningen and further comprises the universities of Leiden, Maastricht, Twente and Wageningen.

The second instalment of the president’s journal ended on Wednesday evening in Aarhus. The European University Association (EUA) conference continues on Thursday with a session on how to maximize the talent pool with lectures by Jose Maria Sanz Martinez, Rector of the Autonomous University of Madrid, and Babette Simon from the University of Oldenburg.

The first instalment of the President’s journal ended on Tuesday night with the preparations for the Spring meetings with the Faculty Boards on Wednesday and the rest of the week.

The Board of the University is kept busy with meetings, conferences and engagements in Groningen and The Hague as well as other parts of the world.
Want to find out more about what a Board member actually does? Prof. Sibrand Poppema will be sharing his experiences with the University community in an occasional diary entry on this site.