Royal decoration for Pim Rooymans

On Friday 26 April, Pim Rooymans, a colleague at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Utrecht University, received a royal decoration: Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau. During the ‘Lintjesregen’ in Stadsschouwburg Utrecht, Pim was surprised by proud family and colleagues. The always cheerful, friendly and talkative Pim now didn’t know what to say. 

Bas Rodenburg, professor of animal welfare at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, together with several colleagues and partners, was the driving force behind Pim's nomination. Bas: "Pim joined the then Department of Laboratory Animal Science in 1985. His work focused on giving practicals and lectures in the field of laboratory animal science. So by now, Pim has been committed to the field of laboratory animal science and the welfare of laboratory animals for almost 40 years. It is his job, but in my view, his commitment to animal science has always gone far beyond what he had to do as a teaching assistant and later as a teaching coordinator.

Pim is also very involved and active in several worthwhile social initiatives. For example, he has been involved in the editorial board of Biotechniek for 34 years, now as editor-in-chief. With the Laboratory Animals Limited Foundation, he has been committed to education and training of researchers and animal caretakers on housing, care and welfare of laboratory animals since the 1990s. In countries such as Portugal, Greece, Hungary, Brazil, Ghana and India. In this way, he helps improve the situation for both people and animals in Europe, Africa and Asia. In Africa, Pim is also active in the conservation and protection of the African wild dog through the Painted Dog Conservation. And a little closer to home, he is committed to creative play equipment for children with the Go Ape foundation (http://www.goape.nu/). Enough reasons to nominate him for a royal decoration, we thought. We are very proud of Pim."