HiSTORY

The Flinders-Holland Cotutelle Program traces its origins to the collaborative vision of Professor Job Doornberg and Professor Ruurd Jaarsma, both orthopaedic trauma specialists and distinguished researchers in orthopaedic surgery. In 2016, having just having finished his Orthopaedic residency in the Netherlands, Prof. Dr. Doornberg relocated to Adelaide to undertake an Orthopaedic Trauma Fellowship at Flinders Medical Centre (FMC) under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Ruurd Jaarsma. The Harvard-Holland research program had already proven to be fruitful, and the professors recognised a similar opportunity to establish a transcontinental collaboration between the Netherlands and Australia.

The program initially emerged as a research collaboration between Flinders University/Flinders Medical Centre and the University of Amsterdam. Drawing on their extensive academic experience and international networks, Professors Doornberg and Jaarsma laid the foundations for what would evolve into a formalised, dual-degree PhD program.

Following the arrival of the first cohort of students in Adelaide, the initiative rapidly gained momentum in both the Netherlands and Australia. This led to the development of a structured partnership enabling joint supervision of PhD candidates across institutions. Students benefit from shared expertise and resources, dividing their research time between Adelaide and the Netherlands, and upon completion are awarded doctoral degrees from both participating universities. The Flinders-Holland Cotutelle program was officially born and it expanded at a rapid pace, with additional Dutch universities expressing their interest and students from the University of Groningen (RUG) and Radboud University in Nijmegen subsequently joining the program.

Today, the program has produced a growing network of successful alumni, with many more candidates currently working on their PhD thesis. Participants have demonstrated strong academic performance, with high-quality publications and the establishment of international research collaborations. Beyond academic achievement, the program has also supported each of its graduates in securing competitive clinical training positions within their chosen specialties.Working together with the Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML), this program offers ambitious students the unique opportunity to find themselves at the frontier of research on Machine Learning in the orthopaedic field. In an evolving healthcare landscape, the Cotutelle Program is committed to training the next generation of orthopaedic surgeons and researchers to make a lasting impact on clinical practice and scientific innovation.