Active Northern thinking and action pays off! This is proven by Jouke de Vries, chairman of the board of the University of Groningen with his ‘University for the North. On Thursday, Jan. 9, he was presented with the 2019 Langman Prize. This happened during the North Netherlands New Year's Reception.
De Vries received the award because he wants to involve the entire North with the university. For example, he opened Campus Fryslân in Leeuwarden and is starting this year, in cooperation with our business cluster, a master track Mechanical Engineering Smart Factories in our ICD Shared Facility Center in Drachten. The University of Groningen also has plans for an IT hub in Hoogeveen and research facilities at the chemical cluster in Delfzijl, Eemshaven and Emmen. ”This active Northern thinking and acting is more than enough reason for the jury to award Jouke de Vries the prize," according to the jury report.
Langman
This is the third time the Langman Prize has been awarded. The prize is awarded to a person or institution that thinks, acts, administers, undertakes without borders and thereby gives impulses to Northern opinion formation or economic development. The namesake of the prize, the Frisian Harrie Langman, was of great importance to the Northern Netherlands as Minister of Economic Affairs. In the early 1970s, he was responsible for supporting the economically weak regions of Limburg and the North. He also initiated the relocation of government services to Groningen and Friesland. He was also behind a billion-dollar support for the North, the so-called Langman funds.