The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is a public research university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, being founded in 1880. The VU Amsterdam is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being the University of Amsterdam (UvA). The literal translation of the Dutch name Vrije Universiteit is "Free University". "Free" refers to independence of the university from both the State and the Dutch Reformed Church. Both within and outside the university, the institution is commonly referred to as "the VU". Although founded as a private institution, the VU has received government funding on a parity basis with public universities since 1970. The university is located on a compact urban campus in the southern Buitenveldert neighbourhood of Amsterdam and adjacent to the modern Zuidas business district.
Robertus Henricus "Robbert" Dijkgraaf FRSE is a Dutch theoretical physicist, mathematician and string theorist, and the current Minister of Education, Culture and Science in the Netherlands. From July 2012 until his inauguration as minister in January 2022, he had been the director and Leon Levy professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and a tenured professor at the University of Amsterdam.
Peter Nijkamp is a Dutch economist, Professor of Regional Economics and Economic Geography at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, a fellow of the Tinbergen Institute and President of the Governing Board of the Netherlands Research Council (NWO). He is ranked among the top 100 economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc, and is by far the most prolific economist. Towards the end of his career at the VU university Nijkamp faced accusations of self-plagiarism and VU-appointed investigators have criticised referencing methods in some of his work.
Pieter (Piet) Rietveld was a Dutch economist and Professor in Transport Economics at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, and a fellow at the Tinbergen Institute. He was among the top researchers in economic geography according to IDEAS/RePEc.
Bernard Marinus Siegfried van Praag is a Dutch economist, and distinguished university professor at the University of Amsterdam, noted for researching the measurement of welfare, as well-being and happiness.
Piek Th.J.M. Vossen, is professor of computational lexicology at the VU University Amsterdam, head of the Computational Lexicology & Terminology Lab, and founder and president of the Global WordNet Association.
Halleh Ghorashi is an Iranian-born anthropologist who lives in the Netherlands. From 2005 to 2012, she held the PaVEM chair in Management of Diversity and Integration in the Department of Organization Sciences at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. She won the 2008 Triumph Prize.
Naomi Ellemers is a distinguished professor of social psychology at Utrecht University since September 2015.
Ineke Sluiter is a Dutch classicist and professor of Greek Language and Literature at Leiden University since 1998. Her research focuses on language, literature, and public discourse in classical antiquity. She was a winner of the 2010 Spinoza Prize. Sluiter has been president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences since June 2020, and previously served as vice president from 2018 to 2020.
Abraham "Bram" van de Beek is a Dutch Reformed theologian. He was a professor at Leiden University and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Gerhardus Johannes "Gerard" van den Berg is a Dutch econometrician. He is professor of Economics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the University of Bristol. He was awarded the 2009 Alexander von Humboldt Professorship at the University of Mannheim. His research lies in the fields of health economics and labour markets.
Catharina Christina Johanna Hermina "Catrien" Bijleveld is a Dutch criminologist. She is a professor of Research Methods in Criminology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Since August 2014 she is director of the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement.
Danielle Posthuma is a Dutch behavior and psychiatric geneticist who specializes in statistical genetics. She is a University Research Chair professor at VU University Amsterdam, where she is also head of the Department of Complex Trait Genetics. She has been a member of the Young Academy of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences since 2005. She is known for studying the genetics of psychiatric and cognitive traits, including schizophrenia, neuroticism, Alzheimer's disease, insomnia, as well as genetics of intelligence, which she first became interested in researching in the 1990s. In 2019 Posthuma became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Jan Lever was a Dutch biologist specialized in zoology, endocrinology and evolutionary biology. His ideas on evolution may be characterized as a form of theistic evolution. Lever was an important voice in shaping Dutch public debate on evolution and biology, particularly in protestant circles.
Caroline Alexandra van Eck is a Dutch art historian and academic, specialising in the art and architecture of the early modern period. Since 2016, she has been Professor of Art History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. She was Professor of Art and Architecture before 1800 at Leiden University from 2006 to 2016, and previously taught at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the University of Groningen. She was the 2017 Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford.
Just Spee is a Dutch football administrator. Since 17 December 2019 he serves as President of the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB).
Adriaan Hendrik Stouthamer was a Dutch microbiologist. He was a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam from the 1960s to 1996.
Ferdinand Jacobus van Ingen was a Dutch scholar of Germanistics. He was a professor of German literature at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam between 1972 and 1998.
Andries Frans Sanders is a Dutch psychologist. In the 1980s he was professor at RWTH Aachen Technical University and served as director of its Institut für Psychologie. Sanders was professor of psychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam between 1989 and 1998.
Mirjam Ernestus is professor of psycholinguistics and scientific director of the Centre for Language Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands.
