At the department of Physics & Astronomy of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, only 24% of the academic staff at the assistant, associate, and full professor level are women, and only 22% of the full professors are female [2].
To improve this gender imbalance, so far, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam created the Fenna Diemer-Lindeboom (FDL) fellowship, which however is limited to internal promotion to full professorship.
Following the example of many other universities in the Netherlands [3], the Faculty of Science of the VU Amsterdam started in 2023 a new fellowship programme that aims at attracting excellent female candidates for academic positions at the levels of assistant, associate, or full professor.
Lovelace Fellowship Programme
The Faculty of Science of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam has initiated the Lovelace Fellowship programme to promote gender diversity and bring a gender-balanced contribution to society in their own academic field.
This Lovelace Fellowship programme aims to attract outstanding female talents with leadership potential and offers a career-track appointment in combination with a start-up package. This programme is intended for ambitious women in academia, research institutes, or industry who have a PhD and aspire to become Assistant-, Associate or Full Professor at the VU Amsterdam. The fellowship is named after the mathematician Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) (4), known as “the first computer programmer”.
Fellows of the Lovelace program are offered a dedicated leadership mentoring programme including:
- Leadership training
- Regular meeting with leaders of our university (Dean of the faculty of Science)
- Meetings with senior female role models in academia and industry
- A female mentor of your own choosing
Lovelace Fellowships at ARCNL
The Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography (ARCNL) is a unique public-private partnership hosting a research collaboration with Dutch universities, including the VU Amsterdam, as public parties and ASML as private industry partner. ARCNL is a national research center within the Dutch Research Council (NWO). ARCNL focusses on fundamental physics and chemistry in the context of technologies for (nano)lithography, primarily for the semiconductor industry. The department of Physics and Astronomy of the VU Amsterdam has been playing a key role in ARCNL since its foundation.
ARCNL is looking for three group leaders, with a focus on experimental research and/or modelling/theoretical research. They will conduct research in collaboration with other research groups of ARCNL. As group leader of ARCNL, they will be employed by and part of the Faculty of Science of either the University of Amsterdam or the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, appointed as Assistant or Associate professor, depending on experience.
The new ARCNL group leaders employed by the VU will be appointed Lovelace Fellows and benefit from the dedicated leadership and mentoring program described above, in addition to a generous start up package.
Vacancies: 3 MacGillavry and Lovelace Fellowships for group leaders ARCNL (Applications are collecting only through this link)
For more information about the search of ARCNL group leaders see here: ARCNL Group Leaders
The target applicants:
Applicants must be outstanding researchers in priority areas within ARCNL. The applicants have the ambition to develop a research track and research group. The Lovelace Fellows can participate in and contribute to the teaching programs of the department Physics & Astromony of the Faculty of Science, so a broad scientific vision on research and education and organisational involvement including managerial tasks are expected.
(1) LNVH, Women Professors Monitor 2023, https://www.lnvh.nl/a-4032/monitor-vrouwelijke-hoogleraren-2023
(2) Figures from the latest head count department of Physics & Astronomy, July 2024.
(3) LNVH Career Guide - Fellowship Programs https://www.lnvh.nl/career-guide-fellowships
(4) About Ada Lovelace https://www.biography.com/scholars-educators/ada-lovelace