10 University of Groningen Alumni Who Changed History
From ending witch hunts and leading nations to reinventing science and finance, meet 10 University of Groningen alumni across 400 years.
For more than four centuries, the University of Groningen has sent graduates into the world who ended old beliefs, rewritten scientific frontiers, and shaped politics and finance. Here are ten alumni, from the 1600s to the 2010s, whose paths began in Groningen and whose impact still resonates.
Balthasar Bekker (1634–1698)
The cleric who helped end witch hunts
A theologian shaped by Groningen and Franeker, Bekker’s bestseller De Betoverde Weereld (The World Bewitched, 1691–93) argued that alleged witchcraft sprang from superstition, not Satanic pact - an intellectual push that helped erode support for persecutions in the Low Countries and beyond. His Groningen education placed him in the thick of the Dutch Republic’s Cartesian debates, and his book became a lightning rod for modern, rational inquiry into “the supernatural.”
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (1713–1792)
Groningen student, British Prime Minister
Well before his controversial stint as Britain’s Prime Minister (1762–63), the young Scottish aristocrat crossed the North Sea to study law in the Netherlands, enrolling at Groningen in 1730 alongside fellow Scots (the matriculation appears in the university’s Album Studiosorum). His Dutch education, split between Groningen and Leiden, illustrates how the Republic drew ambitious Britons seeking rigorous legal training.
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853–1926)
The road to superconductivity
Onnes entered Groningen in 1870 and ultimately earned both his master’s (1878) and doctorate (1879) there before launching the low-temperature research at Leiden that netted him the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physics. The precise, Groningen-trained experimentalist would later liquefy helium and discover superconductivity - an achievement that advances today’s MRI machines and quantum devices.
Aletta Jacobs (1854–1929)
First Dutch woman to complete a university degree
Admitted to Groningen in 1871 after petitioning for entry, Jacobs earned a medical degree (1878) and a medical doctorate (1879), becoming the Netherlands’ first female physician. She later opened a pioneering birth-control clinic and became a driving force for women’s suffrage, making her Groningen years foundational to a global legacy in public health and civil rights.
Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
Cultural history’s classic voice
One of the twentieth century’s most influential historians, Huizinga studied Dutch and Eastern languages at Groningen and took his doctorate there in 1897 with a thesis on Indian theatre. His later works, The Autumn of the Middle Ages and Homo Ludens, reshaped how scholars think about culture, play, and historical mentality.
Jan Hendrik Oort (1900–1992)
Mapping the Galaxy, imagining the Solar System’s edge
Oort began his stellar-dynamics training at Groningen’s Kapteyn Laboratory and completed his PhD there in 1926 under Pieter van Rhijn. He went on to prove the Milky Way’s rotation and propose the distant comet reservoir now called the Oort Cloud: ideas that reframed both galactic structure and our Solar System’s architecture.
Wim Duisenberg (1935–2005)
From Groningen economist to first ECB president
Duisenberg studied economics and earned a PhD at Groningen (dissertation: The Economic Consequences of Disarmament, 1965). After serving as Dutch finance minister and president of De Nederlandsche Bank, he became the first president of the European Central Bank in 1998, steering the euro through its formative launch.
Ben L. Feringa (1951– )
Building machines at the molecular scale
Feringa took both his MSc (1974) and PhD (1978) at Groningen, later becoming a long-time professor there. His creation of light-driven molecular motors, tiny machines that rotate and perform work, earned him the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and opened vistas in smart materials and targeted therapeutics.
Pim Fortuyn (1948–2002)
Sociologist, professor, and disruptive political voice
Fortuyn received his doctorate in sociology from Groningen in 1981 and taught there before turning to commentary and politics. Whatever one’s view of his platform, his rapid rise and assassination in 2002 marked a watershed in Dutch political discourse, one that scholars still analyse for its impact on party systems and public debate.
Klaas Knot (1967– )
Groningen-trained central banker on Europe’s front line
Knot earned his MSc (1991) and PhD (1995) in economics at Groningen, later becoming president of De Nederlandsche Bank and a key voice on the ECB’s Governing Council. From monetary policy to financial stability, his career illustrates how Groningen’s economics faculty continues to shape European decision-making at the highest levels.