Nijmegen is a city in the Netherlands’ province of Gelderland, on the Waal river close to the German border.
Nijmegen is the oldest city in the Netherlands, the second to be recognized as such in Roman times, and in 2005 celebrated 2,000 years of existence. The municipality is part of the Arnhem–Nijmegen metropolitan area, with 736,107 inhabitants in 2011.
Nijmegen is host to Radboud University Nijmegen. Founded in 1923 as the first Catholic university in the Netherlands, it used to be called Catholic University of Nijmegen until 2004, when it took its current name. As of October 2018, it had 22,142 students and 4,921 staff in fte.[16] Radboud University runs the High Field Magnetic Laboratory which is able to achieve some of the highest fields available in Europe at 38 teslas (continuous). The facility is available to outside users, primarily for research purposes.
The education and social work departments of the HAN University of Applied Sciences, school for higher-level vocational training are also located in Nijmegen, as are that school’s medical departments.
In addition to these institutions, there is also an intermediate-level vocational school and a number of secondary schools: Groenschool Nijmegen, Kandinsky College, Nijmeegse Scholengemeenschap Groenewoud (NSG), Citadel College, Stedelijke Scholengemeenschap Nijmegen (SSGN), Canisius College, St. Jorisschool, Mondial College, the Stedelijk Gymnasium (formally the “Latijnse school”, founded in the 16th century), the Karel de Grote College, Montessori College and the Dominicus College. Of note is also Leefwerkschool Eigenwijs, which caters to students from all over the Netherlands who have been repeatedly expelled from “regular” high schools. Leefwerkschool Eigenwijs has its roots in the local activist movement of the early 1980s and is the only school of its kind recognised in the Netherlands.
Nijmegen is also an important centre of Psycholinguistics, home to the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics and the F.C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging.
The Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010 was awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov while at Radboud University “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene.”
The three main employers in Nijmegen are:
2. The three hospitals in the city: Radboud University Medical Center, Sint Maartenskliniek, and Canisius-Wilhelmina Ziekenhuis (CWZ); and
3. The semiconductor industry. Nexperia and Ampleon (both spun off from NXP Semiconductors) are headquartered in the city. Multinational companies such as Qualcomm, Photronics Inc, and Applied Materials also have facilities in Nijmegen.
Other notable companies headquartered in Nijmegen include Synthon, a Dutch multinational pharmaceutical company and Vaxxinova, an EW group subsidiary which produces animal vaccines.
