Sonja JANMAAT

Interview with the Director of the Collège néerlandais

Tell us about your background and your arrival at the Cité internationale.

I graduated with a thesis with joint supervision from the Netherlands and France in neurosciences and I’m a former resident of the Collège néerlandais and I started my professional international career researching the aging nervous system. I then specialised in rare diseases and their databases. Today, in addition to my role as the director for the Collège néerlandais, I work to develop synergies for patients suffering from rare endocrine diseases by coordinating a network of experts with the aim of improving their diagnosis and facilitating scientific research.

What do you think it is that makes the Cité internationale a unique campus in the world?

It’s an exceptional place for interactions and intellectual and cultural exchanges that brings us an amazing experience of opening up to the world. A home in a village, where lifelong friendships are born out of diversity and tolerance. To be the director means promoting sharing in tolerance of others and cultural diversity. 

How does living in your house allow residents to have a different outlook on the world and how is it a spring board for their futures?

The Collège Néerlandais, the modernist architectural masterpiece of W. Dudok, is a luminous building with its numerous windows, two interior courtyards, rooms and corridors that are positioned around it. It highlights the human dimension and invites you to meet people and live together. As they say in the Netherlands, and elsewhere, “better a good neighbour than a distant friend”.

If you had to sum up the Cité internationale in one word, what would it be and why?

Love

The love of learning from our experiences, studies, other cultures, other subjects, passing on our experience, our knowledge, our culture. The love of remembering, the love of beautiful encounters and the love of living together.

VANESSA SCHERRER

Vanessa Scherrer is General Delegate of the National Foundation Cité internationale universitaire de Paris. She was appointed on 11 January 2024 by a joint decision of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the national foundation and the Rector of the Île-de-France academic region, Rector of the Paris education authority, Chancellor of the Universities of Paris and Île-de-France.

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