"The University of Antwerp is an internationally oriented research university with a student body of 20.000, whereof 19% are international students and 130 different nationalities. It offers 30 Bachelor, 69 Master, 20 Advanced Master, 25 Postgraduate degrees, organised in 9 faculties, 17 centers & institutes. 26 programmes are entirely taught in English. Doctoral programmes are available in all faculties. The educational policy focuses on the acquisition of international & intercultural competencies by all students in order to become responsible citizens in a globalised society and to be successful on the labour market. Student Mobility is the tool by excellence to reach these transversal skills. The aim is to reach sustainable growth in international student and staff mobility. Special attention is paid to underrepresented groups and alternative forms of mobility. Measures are undertaken to detect and to overcome obstacles on all levels. The internationalisation of the curriculum is high on the agenda as well. With regards to staff mobility, the university underpins the importance of teaching assignments and training opportunities abroad. In order to continuously internationalise and innovate the educational offer. Administrative staff training abroad fosters personal development, professional networks and global vision. During 2018-2019 355 students of the UAntwerp took part in the Erasmus exchange, whereof 323 for study and 32 for placement, 428 students from Erasmus partner universities chose for UAntwerp. 27 staff members took up a teaching assignment and 21 administrative staff participated in a staff training week abroad + 4 invited guest speakers from the private sector. The Erasmus mobility project is managed in cooperation between central and faculty level each with a distinctive role. Faculties choose their partners, conclude the inter-institutional agreements and maintain contacts. The central international office supports the administrative follow-up and maintains the database. It is coordinating all operational and policy aspects related to the internationalisation and the mobility in particular and is taking care of contractual & financial aspects. The faculties are responsible for the academic part of the mobility of incoming and outgoing students. All faculties have international coordinators, at academic and administrative level in place. Information channels are: website (at central and faculty level),Blackboard, Mobility Online, mailings, social media, information sessions (at faculty and central level) for incoming and outgoing students, an orientation programme for incoming students and a yearly event ""buitenlanddag"" for outgoing students. Internal students evaluations are available and bring valuable feedback to the students directly. Sufficient language competencies are considered essential for a successful stay. Incoming students are invited to join a Dutch language course for a smooth integration in city & university. Also outgoing students can take online language courses when they opt to learn or improve the language of the country of destination, moreover all students who went on Erasmus did the OLS language test. All students got academic recognition for the credits obtained at the host institution. The learning agreements are always concluded before departure but not always signed by the partner universities due to different reasons. Students receive their grant according to the contractual stipulations. The prepayment is carried out after signing the grant agreement and after upload of an arrival statement. The remainder is paid when all administrative obligations are met. All students (incoming and outgoing) receive information about visa and insurance coverage (by email and available on the website). Very few Erasmus students needed a visa. The course catalogue is available online in Dutch and English and updated yearly (during the 2nd semester of the preceding academic year). A link to the English taught courses is provided as a shortcut, to ensure easy accessible information. All incoming students have access to all educational & university facilities. The educational and examination regulations apply and are explained during orientation. The university offers extra activities, such as orientation days, socio-cultural excursions during the year, ESN provides a buddy system. Information & support on accommodation in Antwerp is given by the international housing officers. Year long stays students find accommodation through the KOTWEB database available to all students and also receive info with addresses and tips to start their search. For semester stays the university offers accommodation in own management or guides the students. The testimonials indicate the impact of the Erasmus stay has been very big on student's personal development and intercultural experience."

The transition metal-catalyzed direct functionalization of C-H bonds is a major research topic across the world. However selective (regio-, enantio-, diastereoselective) and efficient functionalization of C(sp3)-H bonds, remains a significant challenge: C(sp3)-H bonds are omnipresent in organic molecules and their dissociation energies are large. The use of directing groups (DGs) “guiding” the metal to specific C-H bonds and allowing intramolecular C-H bond activation, is a recognized general approach to address the selectivity challenge. However, their installation and removal add steps to the overall reaction sequence. This proposal aims to develop unprecedented regio- and diastereoselective transition metal-catalyzed functionalization of piperidine derivatives with haloalkenes making use of transient DGs, installed and removed in situ during catalysis. Access to a large number of substituted piperidines as well as known and new bicyclic scaffolds can be achieved via post-functionalization of the vinylpiperidine reaction products, making the aimed synthetic methodology potentially suitable for molecular library synthesis in drug discovery. A particularly challenging objective of the proposal is the remote (meta) functionalization with respect to the DG at C3 of the piperidine ring. Piperidine is chosen as a central heterocycle core in this application based on its importance in drug design and wide occurrence in commercial drugs (privileged scaffold).

The degradation of permafrost has accelerated in subarctic and arctic regions. The southern boundary of permafrost distribution has receded northwards over the last decades, and the degradation has also increased in the arctic zone of continuous permafrost. This process is expected to persist in the future due to climate warming, which is amplified in circumpolar regions. Almost half of the world’s soil organic C is stored in permafrost, largely in permanently frozen peat. The degradation of permafrost in peatlands is particularly threatening because it may turn peatlands from C sinks to C sources and accelerate climate change. However, the coupling between C and nutrient cycles is still poorly understood, and needs to be addressed to properly understand the impacts of permafrost thawing on the functioning of peatland ecosystems and their feedback on global climate. FROSTLAND addresses some of these uncertainties. The overall aims are to elucidate the fine-scale biogeochemical changes occurring in the active layer and in deep permafrost across gradients of permafrost thaw in subarctic and arctic peatlands and to improve fine- and broader-scale estimates of nutrient availability and of C and nutrient stocks in different global warming scenarios. FROSTLAND is based on a detailed research plan that has been accurately designed to address these knowledge gaps. The achievement of these objectives will require the acquisition of new knowledge and skills by the researcher, who will be trained at PLECO (UAntwerp) under the supervision of Prof. Janssens, an expert in soil biogeochemistry. A secondment to the Dept. Physical Geography (Stockholm Univ.) will be supervised by Prof. Hugelius, an expert in modelling and upscaling of C and nutrients in permafrost and peatlands. The work will be based on available datasets collected in permafrost peatlands in previous projects and also on new data acquisition. FROSTLAND is an essential step for the researcher's career success.