LNVH medal awarded to Eindhoven University of Technology for the Irène Curie Fellowship Program

With this medal, the LNVH expresses its appreciation for the bold way in which the TU/e has designed and implemented the Irène Curie Fellowship and persevered in the face of adversity. LNVH chair Hanneke Takkenberg calls the TU/e program 'groundbreaking'. “In addition to the fact that the program has proven to be effective, it is inspiring and encouraging that the process at the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights has led to more insight and clearer preconditions for deploying these kinds of initiatives for greater gender diversity. This is extremely helpful for institutions who want to follow their lead”, Takkenberg writes in the award letter to the TU/e.

“For us, receiving this LNVH medal is a huge recognition of our persistent efforts and the success of the programme”, rector magnificus Frank Baaijens states. "I'm proud of it. The medal will hang in our boardroom as a reminder of how important it is that we keep working on this topic.”

President of the TU/e Executive Board Robert-Jan Smits: “Thanks to our Irène Curie Fellowship Programme, we have been able to attract a large group of very talented female academics from all over the world. This has enabled us to achieve exceptional growth in the proportion of women in the academic staff. Our aim remains to pass the thirty percent threshold in every job category and in every faculty. Because at that percentage, a minority ceases to be a minority and has the influence it deserves.”

Earlier this week, LNVH sent host Eveline van Rijswijk to Eindhoven to officially hand over the medal to TU/e rector magnificus Frank Baaijens. We invite you to watch the video below.

LNVH medal
This year the LNVH celebrates its 20th anniversary. In the past 20 years, LNVH developed from a ‘luis in de pels’ to a policy influencing and agenda setting organisation with the aim to promote equal representation of women in academia, to works towards the betterment of the position of women academics of all backgrounds and to push for an inclusive and safe academic community. When the LNVH was founded, a small number of medals were minted. These medals are awarded to individuals or institutions that have made an outstanding contribution to the promotion of gender equality in Dutch academia. This is the sixth time the medal has been awarded.

Irène Curie Fellowship Program
The Irène Curie Fellowship program, which was launched in 2019, and aims to increase the proportion of women in the permanent scientific staff at TU/e, has been very successful. Since the start, 73 women have been hired on the permanent scientific staff. This is an increase of more than fifty percent. More information on the Irène Curie Fellowship can be found here.