History and Accreditation

The ILLC founded the MSc Logic as a one-year programme in 1995. In the first few years, at most a handful of students started the programme each year. The current two-year programme and the Logic Year were introduced in 2003. A PhD programme has been offered since 1986, when the ILLC started as the Instituut voor Taal, Logica en Informatie (ITLI).

Former directors of the MSc Logic programme:

  • Dick de Jongh (1995-2004)
  • Benedikt Löwe (2004-2010)
  • Ulle Endriss (2010-2015)
  • Maria Aloni (2015-2020)
  • Paul Dekker (2020-2023)

In September 2023, approximately 60 PhD candidates, and 120 MSc Logic students from 34 different countries and 4 continents were studying at the ILLC.

The MSc Logic has first been formally accredited in 2008 (following an evaluation in 2006) by the Nederlands-Vlaamse Accreditatieorganisatie (NVAO), during the first round of accreditation exercises of Master's programmes in the Netherlands. The programme achieved one of the best results of all programmes in all disciplines across the country. Accreditation is up for renewal every six years: in 2014 (following an evaluation in 2013) the MSc Logic has again been accredited by the NVAO and received the very rare distinction of being officially recognised as an excellent Master's programme, and in 2019 the MSc Logic received equally eminent feedback by the accreditation committee. The current accreditation is valid for the period of 2019-2025. Full information is available here: