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Meet the new Aletta Jacobs professors and Rosalind Franklin fellows

International Women's Day 2021
08 March 2021
International Women's Day 2021

On International Women’s Day 2020, Rector Magnificus Cisca Wijmenga announced that the UG would create fifteen new chairs for female professors: the Aletta Jacobs chairs. Now, a year later, sixteen professors have been installed and a further seventeen new Rosalind Franklin fellowships have been awarded. Time to meet these talented female academics!

Our university aspires to be an inclusive, diverse and open community. This means that we endeavour to appoint more women from all around the world to higher academic positions. The Aletta Jacobs chairs and the Rosalind Franklin Fellowship programme play an important part in realizing this ambition.

Aletta Jacobs chairs

The UG has created an incentive fund to set up new chairs to be assigned exclusively to female academics. The incentive fund made it possible to promote existing female Associate Professors to full Professor positions. All the women met the promotion criteria.

Cisca Wijmenga: ‘We have filled these sixteen chairs in a relatively short amount of time, despite the fact that appointing a professor is usually a lengthy process. This shows just how many potential female candidates we have. I am therefore confident that the UG will be able to achieve its goal of having 33% female professors by 2025.’

Rosalind Franklin Fellowships

The UG has been running the Rosalind Franklin Fellowship Programme since 2003. Over 120 talented female researchers have already been appointed via this programme, including the new fellows who started in 2020 and 2021. Read more about the fellows from 2020-2021 and their research in this brochure.

‘I am proud to present the Aletta Jacobs professors and the new Rosalind Franklin fellows! This is an important incentive for female academic talent at our university. They will also serve as role models for our female students’, says Gerry Wakker, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer.

Aletta Jacobs professors


Rosalind Franklin fellows 2020-2021

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Last modified:18 July 2024 2.58 p.m.
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