ESE Research Traineeship Programme certificates awarded

During a celebratory reception on 14 June 2012, the academic managers of the ESE Research Traineeship Programme awarded certificates to seven students who successfully participated in the programme during the 2011/2012 academic year. Just like last year, the certificates were awarded to students with a diverse range of cultural backgrounds. The students (or their parents), were born in the Dutch Antilles, Russia, Turkey, Suriname, China, Morocco and Pakistan respectively.

The goal of the ESE Research Traineeship programme is to give a select group of B3 students with a migrant background the opportunity to acquaint themselves with academic research and to give them an opportunity to build a career in academia. Throughout the course of a year, the trainees will support a member of the academic staff and will also attend a series of seminars. In the seminars, academics will talk about their own careers and the choices that they made along the way, attention will be given to essential research skills and the Tinbergen Institute and ERIM will provide information about the MPhil and PhD programmes. The Research Traineeship programme was developed because around one-third of our students have a migrant background, although few students from this group go on to take an MPhil or PhD course or apply for jobs in academia.  This means that our school is missing out on a huge pool of talent. The programme is sponsored by the KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences).

The search is already under way for trainees and members of the academic staff to participate in next year's programme. We hope that in 2012-2013, there will once again be a diverse range of enthusiastic trainees and members of the academic staff who will embrace the programme as much as this year.