One earth, one family, one future

Rector Jeroen Geurts welcomed the guests and 16 VU academics and students at the VU – India Roundtable Discussion, during which we exchanged ideas on sustaining and intensifying our collaboration. As of 1 December, India has held the G-20 Presidency and is striving to take steps towards a better world. We discussed the importance of international academia working with governments, companies and people to reach that ambition. The diverse group of VU academics from a broad variety of disciplines, from computer science to spirituality, from linguistics to econometrics and physics, committed themselves to a long-term VU-India collaboration. The Rector launched a VU – India mini-grant scheme, which will act as seed funding mechanism to increase impact. VU academics can apply for the grant for projects with Indian collaborators.

After the Roundtable Conversations, we celebrated a belated Diwali with around 100 students and staff and enjoyed a good Indian meal. The International Office would like to thank Professor Sharda Nandram for the opening ceremony and lighting the candles, Edith Nordmann for her passion and invitation to students to engage with NICCT, and our students who performed and played the veena, and games!