Yesterday, I had the pleasure and privilege to attend the award ceremony of the NWO Mosaic research grants. A Mosaic grant embodies recoginition and encouragement of multicultural research talent in the Netherlands, enabling a full 4 year-PhD trajectory based on a research proposal to be defended to an academic jury. Of this year’s 21 winners, 5 came from Erasmus. Two years ago, we had only 1 winner. Apparently, we learned quickly how to improve: by offering a professional training and guidance programme to this years entrants, we were able to increase the success rate to the point that EUR had more successful applicants than any other university. Well done to all concerned.

Sadly, it is rapidly becoming harder to attract and retain multicultural researcher talent to The Netherlands. We have seen the first PhD offers being rejected on the grounds that our political climate is  increasingly unwelcoming to foreigners. I will continue to point out the importance of  a generous admission policy for foreign researchers, and hope the readers of my blog will join me in exerting their political influence to this effect.