Headlines

On Friday 29 October the Faculty of Medicine will be presentingthe course: `Colloquial Medical Terms in Dutch'. The course wasdeveloped by the James Boswell Institute and consists of two parts:a list of medical terms in Dutch, English and Latin, and a set ofthirty dialogues between doctors and patients. The course aims atforeign doctors who - as refugees or otherwise - have settled inthe Netherlands and want to practice medicine here. Over the pastfew years it turned out that passing the NT2-II exam, the officialstate exam in Dutch as a second language, was not enough and thatextra training was required to give them a better understanding ofcolloquial medical jargon and doctor-patient discussions.

Spinoza Prize

One of the four top researchers awarded a three million guildersSpinoza premium by the research organisation NWO is molecularbiologist Professor R. Plasterk, who will be moving from Amsterdamto Utrecht on 1 February 2000. The Spinoza premium is the top Dutchresearch award and therefore also called the "Dutch Nobel Prize".The other three prize winners are Professor C.W.J. Beenakker(Theoretical Physics, Leyden), Professor R. de Borst (AppliedMechanics, Delft), and Professor E.A. Cutler, ComparativePsycholinguistics, head of the Max Planck Institute forPsycholinguistics in Nijmegen. Cutler is the first woman to beawarded the Spinoza premium.

Research funds

Already next year Minister Hermans will be spending an extra tenmillion guilders on scientific research. At first he had notintended to do so for another three years, but he was forced tobudge by Parliament, that accused the Minister of not spendingenough money on science. The ten million are to contribute to the`innovation incentive' for promising research, for which a totalamount of 75 million is available.

Mastership

On 5 November the 1999 Mastership Prize will be awarded by theSociety for Dutch Literature. This prize, which is only awardedonce every five years, will go to Professor W.P. Gerritsen fromUtrecht University. In his books and articles Professor Gerritsendevotes a large amount of attention to `Die wrake van Ragisel' (Therevenge of Ragisel), a Middle Dutch Arthurian romance which wasalso the subject of his PhD thesis, to `Lantsloot vanderHaghedochte'(Lancelot of Haghedochte) and to `De reis van SintBrandaan' (the Journey of St Brendan). In the field of education hehas always promoted the interests of Utrecht's (interdisciplinary)Medieval Studies.