For more than 10 years, Connect International has offered information and support to help international residents familiarize themselves with the Northern Netherlands. Over the years, we have experienced that our services and activities fill a definite need in the region among international employees and their families.

What is our plan?

Our new goal is to expand our services and activities by opening an International Welcome and Information Center. The welcome center will offer extended information on working, studying and living in the Northern Netherlands to all international people who are either new to the Netherlands or who have lived here for a while. The center will offer information in English on issues such as housing, the health care system, utilities, insurances, visas and work and residence permits, registration at the municipality, drivers licenses, schools, local taxes, etc, etc. It will also offer opportunities for making contacts between international people and Dutch citizens by organizing social events, offering workshops, sightseeing tours etc.

The general idea is to make the international community of the Northern Netherlands more visible and to help make the transition to living in the Northern Netherlands as smooth as possible for international workers and their families. In other areas of the country (such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Nijmegen, Eindhoven, Leiden, Maastricht, and Almere), centers for international people have recently been opened or will open soon, so this idea is not new. However, there is not yet a center for the north of the country.

Why do we need your help?

To convince governmental agencies, provinces, and municipalities to support this project proposal, we need your help! You are the target group for the welcome center, and to better serve you, we need to know who you are, what you do, why you are here and most importantly, what kind of problems you face.

To find answers to these questions a group of students from the International Business School in Groningen has assembled the attached questionnaire. You can greatly assist us by taking some time to fill in the questionnaire as fully as possible. All information will be confidential!

• To fill in the questionnaire, please click on the link: Questionnaire. Questions can be answered in the file by marking the appropriate option. If you don’t feel comfortable with answering some questions, you are free to leave it blank.
• After completing the questionnaire, you can return it to Connect before 1 December!  We guarantee that this information will only be used to support the proposal for the welcome center and we will respect your privacy.
• We are also looking for some candidates to do some in depth interviews. If you are interested in doing this, please send an email to connect@inn.nl and we will get in touch with you. If you have any other questions, you can also send an email to this address

Thank you in advance for filling in the questionnaire. Your help can make the difference for the success of this project!