Room for Discussion

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Room for Discussion

Room for Discussion - University of Amsterdam www.roomfordiscussion.com
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Room for Discussion is the discussion platform of the University of Amsterdam. Weekly interviews are organized with influential people from the economic and political world. Previous guests include; Christine Lagarde, Mario Draghi, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Larry Summers & Thomas Piketty.

10/12/2025

📣 RfD’s 2025 wrapped is here! 📣

👉 Swipe through to see our 2025

🫶 Thank you all very much for following and supporting Room for Discussion! We hope to see you again after the Christmas break! 🎄

30/11/2025

How does the Senate really work behind closed doors? How does an unelected chamber claim to safeguard the rule of law? And how legitimate is an institution that can kill any bill at the very last moment?

In an era of rising polarization and declining trust in government, these questions matter more than ever.

Join us for an in-depth discussion with Mei Li Vos, recently appointed President of the Senate, and take the opportunity to ask your own question:

3 Dec 2025
13:00-14:00
E-Hall Roeterseilandcampus

28/11/2025

🎄 Think you know how to distinguish your Santas from your Grinches? Can you name a weird
Christmas tradition or recognize holiday cuisine around the globe?

🕺 Then grab your friends, your brains, and your ugliest, most glittery Christmas sweater and join us in Krater on Wednesday the 3rd of December!

Come for the quiz, stay for the laughs, and leave with bragging rights! There will be prizes for the sharpest! 🏆

24/11/2025

Why has the Netherlands avoided its colonial past? How did Indonesia spark decolonisation across the Global South? And what happens when history is told through lived experience rather than battles?

Join us for a conversation about the revolution that reshaped the modern world.

📅 November 27 | 13:00–14:00
📍 Room for Discussion stage, Roeterseiland

21/11/2025

Don’t Freek out! - Freek Janmaat on Financing Europe’s Future 🏦

💶Europe faces a pivotal moment. Climate pressures are intensifying, geopolitical tensions are rising, and public budgets are under strain.

🦠After the COVID-19 crisis, the European Commission launched NextGenEU, the largest investment program in its history. This bold step reignited a central debate:
Does Europe need stronger public leadership to steer the economy, or should it focus on cutting red tape to boost productivity?

💲To explore this dilemma, we are joined by Freek Janmaat, Economic Counsellor at the European Commission’s Representation in the Netherlands. With direct insight into the Commission’s strategic thinking, he will outline how Europe envisions its fiscal and economic future.

Want to understand where Europe is heading? Join us on:

🗓️ 26th Nov 2025
🕐 13:00-14:00
📍 E-Hall Roeterseilandcampus

20/11/2025

Forget the textbook version of history. The story of the modern world didn’t start in Europe. It began in Java, where a generation of young Indonesians dared to imagine freedom after centuries of Dutch rule. In Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World, David Van Reybrouck, the award-winning author of Congo: The Epic History of a People, listens to the last surviving witnesses of that revolution.

What happens when history stops being about “men, names, and battles” and becomes about lived experiences? Why have the Netherlands long preferred to forget about its colonial past? How did Indonesia ignite a wave of decolonisation across the Global South? What a truly decolonised democracy could look like?

Join us for a conversation about the revolution🫶🏽

19/11/2025

Don’t Freek out! - Freek Janmaat on Financing Europe’s Future 🏦

💶Europe faces a pivotal moment. Climate pressures are intensifying, geopolitical tensions are rising, and public budgets are under strain.

🦠After the COVID-19 crisis, the European Commission launched NextGenEU, the largest investment program in its history. This bold step reignited a central debate:
Does Europe need stronger public leadership to steer the economy, or should it focus on cutting red tape to boost productivity?

To explore this dilemma, we are joined by Freek Janmaat, Economic Counsellor at the European Commission’s Representation in the Netherlands. With direct insight into the Commission’s strategic thinking, he will outline how Europe envisions its fiscal and economic future.

Want to understand where Europe is heading? Join us on:

🗓️ 26th Nov 2025
🕐 13:00-14:00
📍 E-Hall Roeterseilandcampus

08/11/2025

Join us next week for “Saving for a Rainy Decade” with Minister Eelco Heinen on how Europe should navigate slow growth, high debt and rising global competition. 🇪🇺💶

In this teaser, Dr. Van den Noord and Dr. Romp (Faculty of Economics and Business) share their insights ahead of the interview.

🗓 10 November | 🕐 13:00–14:00
📍 E-Hall, Roeterseiland Campus (REC)

03/11/2025

🎙 Join Minister of Finance Eelco Heinen at Room for Discussion for a talk on fiscal prudence, European integration, and the politics of restraint. With defence costs rising and growth slowing, where does prudence end and under-investment begin?

📅 10 November | 🕐 13:00–14:00 | 📍 E-Hall

17/10/2025

🇺🇦What does it mean to grow up in a
war?

Thousands of Ukrainian children have been separated from their families, displaced, or abducted since the war began.

On 20 October, Room for Discussion welcomes Kyrylo Lapko, Head of Reintegration and International Relations at the Coordination Center for Family Upbringing and Child Care Development in Ukraine.

Lapko works on the front line of bringing these children home
— and helping them rebuild their lives. Together, we’ll discuss the realities of childhood in wartime Ukraine: how children are taken, how they can return, and what recovery looks like after such trauma.

Join us for an emotional and deeply human conversation about resilience, loss, and hope for the next generation.

📍E-hall, Roeterseiland
🕑13:00 - 14:00
🗓️20 October

15/10/2025

🇺🇦 What does it mean to grow up in a war?

Thousands of Ukrainian children have been separated from their families, displaced, or abducted since the war began. On 20 October, Room for Discussion welcomes Kyrylo Lapko, Head of Reintegration and International Relations at the Coordination Center for Family Upbringing and Child Care Development in Ukraine.

Lapko works on the front line of bringing these children home — and helping them rebuild their lives. Together, we’ll discuss the realities of childhood in wartime Ukraine: how children are taken, how they can return, and what recovery looks like after such trauma.

Join us for an emotional and deeply human conversation about resilience, loss, and hope for the next generation.

📍E-hall, Roeterseiland
🕐 13:00 - 14:00
🗓️ 20 October

14/10/2025

Today, we had the honour of welcoming Pieter Hasekamp, Director of the Centraal Planbureau and Chair of the European Fiscal Board, for an insightful discussion on Europe’s fiscal outlook and the Netherlands’ economic future.

Thank you to everyone who joined us! 🤝

Adres

Roetersstraat 11
Amsterdam
1018

Website

http://www.roomfordiscussion.com/

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Who we are

Room for Discussion is the interview platform of the University of Amsterdam. We organise weekly interviews with professors, entrepreneurs, economists, politicians, philosophers, CEOs and journalists to talk and discuss relevant economic topics and recent events. Our goal? To help students close the gap between the world of academia and the world of economic and political reality.

Our ‘living room’ with its characteristic Chesterfields is situated in the central hall of the main building of the Faculty Economics and Business. This is in the E-building at the Roeterseilandcampus of the University of Amsterdam. The weekly interviews are open to all students from all universities. During the interview, the audience also gets the opportunity to ask questions to the guests on stage.

If you cannot make it to our living room for the interviews, you don’t have to miss a thing. Watch the interviews at home via the live stream or read the best bits in real-time by following us on Twitter. Please like us on Facebook as well, so we can keep you up to date on upcoming interviews and check out our website!

History

In September 2008, the American bank Lehman Brothers fell. This bankruptcy marked the beginning of one of the most devastating financial crisis that the world has ever seen. The crisis affected the whole world and profoundly changed the way people looked at economics as a science. People started discussing the causes and effects of the financial meltdown around the globe, including at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Amsterdam.

A group of students, led by Maurits Kruithof, started Room for Discussion as a means to facilitate this discussion and to bridge the gap between economics in the news and economics as a science. Since then, Room for Discussion has organised weekly hour-long interviews about economic and political topics. By combining a journalistic approach with scientific rigour, Room for Discussion connects the world of academia with reality.

On our podium, many leading economists, politicians and entrepreneurs have sat down on our chesterfields to discuss recent events on politics and economics. We had the honour to receive guests including Christine Lagarde (IMF), Mario Draghi (ECB), Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Ratan Tata, Larry Summers, Thomas Piketty and many more.

Join the Committee

More interviews are to come and as a committee we are always looking for potential interviewers that are enthusiastic, eager to learn and have a journalistic drive. Do you want to join our committee? Read more on how we work and on how to apply here.