More than 3 months into the lock down of our institute, it is time to look back, but also ahead. In March we decided to limit our physical presence in our institute: we closed our library and canceled our scheduled lectures and film evenings. We also decided to cancel our semester in Cairo for the students of our participating universities in the Netherlands and Flanders and organized an online continuation of their classes. The vast majority of our students kept joining their classes online from their home countries and their feedback has been very positive. We take their suggestions for improvement very seriously and I am confident we will do even better in our next online semester.

We are now planning the first semester of the coming academic year online; we decided to do this after careful consideration and consultation with Leiden University. The deadline for registration of this online semester is 1 July 2020.　

We hope next year to have moved beyond and out of these confusing times of the pandemic, so that we, hopefully, will be able to organize a new great Cairo study experience to students of our universities and to serve the academic communities of our universities. Until September, we have also put our public activities on hold; we first want to be able to assess how the situation develops here in Cairo and we will announce resumption of our public activities here (the newsletter) and on our Facebook page in due time (https://www.facebook.com/NVICairo).

Once a week, on Monday mornings from 9-12, our offices are still open to take care of business. If you have reason to physically visit our offices, please apply for an appointment through info@nvic.leidenuniv.nl. Physical visits to our offices are by appointment only.

We also experienced an unfortunate ransomware incident; one of our computers was hacked. Please read our announcement on https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/nvic/news/statement-on-ransomware-incident-at-nvic to learn how this might affect you.

Looking back again, I conclude that we have made the best of the past worrisome times. I am proud of our staff and also our students, who persevered and were able to conclude their semester from their homes. We shall continue the coming months in the same manner and will hopefully be able to serve our students and scholars to the best of our ability.

Cairo has been our home for almost 50 years now, and will remain to be so for many years to come.

Best regards,
Dr Rudolf de Jong