Past activities
The Nijmegen Interdisciplinary Centre for Development and Cultural Change (NICCOS) was established as an interfaculty workgroup in 1989. In the same year the workgroup started the book series Nijmegen Studies in Development and Cultural Change. During the first years of its existence the workgroup prepared a joint research program entitled “Incorporation, Confrontation and Resistance”.
- 1991: The research program started on the 1st of January 1991
- The original programme consisted of 70 doctoral and post-doctoral research projects.
On 1 January 1994 NICCOS was recognized by the Board of Governors of 
the then Catholic University Nijmegen as a Research Institute within the Faculty of Social Sciences. Importantly NICCOS was able to retain its interdisciplinary character.
- 1995: A new research program was formulated (1995-1999) entitled “Dominance and Diversity: The Interdependence of Local and Global Processes of Change”.
- The program comprised 65 doctoral and post-doctoral research projects.
During the period between 1995 and 1999 NICCOS served as the Nijmegen branch of two national research schools, the Centre for Resource Studies (CERES) and the Centre for Non-Western Studies (CNWS). Thereby it provided training of junior researchers based in Nijmegen and organized annual research seminars for the two national research schools. Thus research seminars were organized which dealt with “Globalization and Syncretism” (1996), “Vasco da Gama and European Expansion in Africa and Asia” (1999) and “People on the move” (1999).
- 1996: the Nijmegen Studies in Development and Cultural Change was published by Verlag für Entwiclungspolitik in Saarbrücken.
- 1998: NICCOS organized an interdisciplinary master course on “Globalization and Spirituality in East and West”.
On 1 January 2000 NICCOS ceased to exist as an independent research institute. Thereby NICCOS returned to its roots, once again becoming an inter-faculty workgroup, thereby also extending its collaboration to other departments such as International Health and Environmental Studies. This resulted in a number of activities:
- 2002: NICCOS hosted the international conference on “Healthy Cities”, organized by the Nijmegen Urban Health Group (NUHG).
- 2006: In collaboration with PRIOR (Poverty Related Infection Oriented Research) NICCOS organized an interdisciplinary master course on "Poor Global Health" in the Honors Program in the academic year 2006–2007.
- 2007: Due to the success of the Poor Global Health course in 2006-2007 the course was repeated for the academic year 2007–2008.
- In 2011 the Poor Global health Course was translated into a research program called Water Health and Development in which 8 Ph.D. candidates were trained.
From 2012 till 2018 NICCOS was involved in a research program on Water, Health and Development aiming to develop interdisciplinary, integrated and comprehensive knowledge and tools dealing with the relation between water management, poverty reduction and health care and with a clear societal impact as well.