... a high-ranking university in a small but vibrant city with a great atmosphere…. and don’t forget your bike!
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Where is it?
Equidistant from Amsterdam and Bremen in Northern Germany (2hrs), the lively town of Groningen is in the North of the Netherlands, situated away from the crowded, highly urbanised centre of the country. Only a short journey away from the beaches and dunes of the Wadden Sea World Heritage site and surrounded by beautiful polder country, it is the town with the lowest average age in the Netherlands – half the population is under 35 years old and 1 in 4 is a student. On our visit to Groningen on a term time weekend, the town was buzzing with activity even on a wet autumn day.
On Saturday night the students were out in large numbers having a good time, but the atmosphere was fun and convivial. The town feels like a safe and homely place to be. Groningen has been named the “World Cycle City” – 57% of all city journeys are made by bike and most of the centre is pedestrianised.
What programme can I choose?
Of the 55 bachelor programmes and 111 Masters’ programmes offered by the University of Groningen, 26 Bachelor degrees and 78 Masters’ degrees are taught entirely in English. The choice is large but the university is best known for its programmes in life sciences, chemistry, medicine and economics. The International Business programme is Equis approved and finally the University College Groningen offers an interesting Liberal Arts programme. The University of Groningen has three main poles of research which influence the profiles of all its academic programmes: Energy, Healthy Ageing and Sustainable Society, all important programmes for our global future.
Why should I go there?
Founded in 1614, the venerable University of Groningen is a world class university and the second oldest in the Netherlands. It has therefore 400 years of teaching experience and some high quality programmes on offer. It scores highly in the university world rankings, rubbing shoulders easily with the top 15 in the UK. Times Higher Education gives it 74th place this year, thus ranking it above universities such as Warwick, Exeter, St Andrews, Penn State, Georgetown, Copenhagen, Freiburg and Lund. QS Top Universities places it at n° 100. Since Groningen is a highly respected research university it does well in the ARWU (Shanghai) rankings coming in at 75th place.
What’s it like?
The university has 30,234 students enrolled as at 1st September 2015, some 5, 600 full time staff and 491 full time professors. International students represent about 14% of the cohort and come from 120 countries around the world. 37.1% of the academic staff is international.Only a few programmes are based in the Academy building in the centre of town, most are taught on campus, just a short cycle ride away on the edge of town. The liberal arts course is based at University College Groningen which is in the centre.
DID YOU KNOW? A pioneer in cross-cultural research, organizational culture and cultural economics and management, the professor emeritus, Geert Hofstede is an alumnus of the University of Groningen. Cross-cultural management (very useful for international business teams) is a subject which features in the international business programme.