List of Previous Hendrik de Waard Lectures
- 2023: Josefine Proll, Cleverly Shaped Stellarators
- 2022: Cristiane de Morais Smith, Consciousness, a Quantum Phenomenon?
- 2018: Rebecca Smethurst, Supermassive Black Holes: The Ultimate Galaxy Eaters?
- 2017: David Awschalom, Beyond Electronics: Abandoning Perfection for Quantum Technologies
- 2016: Marcus du Sautoy, Finding Moonshine: A Mathematician's Journey Through Symmetry
- 2015: Aubrey de Grey, How Medicine may eliminate aging
- RUG lustrum: Lord Martin Rees (Crafoord Prize 2005), From Mars to the multiverse
- 2014: Prof. John-Dylan Haynes, Brain Reading: Facts versus Science Fiction
- 2013: Prof. Eduard Hovy, Computers: form understanding language, to understanding us
- 2012: Sir Harold Kroto (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1996), Science, Lost in Translation?
- 2011: Jocelyn Bell-Burnell (Herschel Medal 1989), Will the world end in 2012?
- Silver Jubilee: Rashid Sunyaev (Bruce Medal 2000), The Secrets of the Big Bang
- 2010: Joachim Ullrich (Leipniz Award 1999), Ultra-Brilliant Light for Science
- 2009: Robert Kennicutt (Gruber Prize 2009), The invisible Universe
- 2008: George Whitesides (National Medal of Science), Questions about questions about the origin of life
- 2007: William Bialek, Physics Problems in Early Embryonic Development
- 2006: Jerry Atwood, Molecular Capsules
- 2004: Peter Vettiger, Micromachines rewrite the future of data storage
- 2002: Valery V. Nesvizhevsky, Gravity leaps into the quantum world
- 2001: Lene Hau, Walking at the speed of light
- 1999: Lawrence M. Krauss, The Physics of Star Trek
- 1998: Edward van den Heuvel, Neutron Stars, Black Holes and Cosmic Explosions
- 1997: Samuel Williamson, Magnetic Investigations of Human Brain Functions. (Past away in 2005)
- 1996: Herbert Walther, Quantum Optics of a Single Atom. (Past away in 2006)
- 1995: Ahmed Zewail (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1999), Femtoscopy, seeing at the speed of light
- 1994: Roger Penrose (Nobel Prize 2020), Shadows of the mind
- 1993: Wolfgang Ehrfeld, 3D microstructures
- 1992: Heinrich Rohrer (Nobel Prize 1986), Experimenting on the nanometer scale
- 1991: Richard Smalley (Nobel Prize 1996), Buckyballs, great balls of carbon
- 1990: Thomas Rosswall, Man and the global environment
- 1989: Sandy Primrose, The biotechnology revolution
- 1988: Makato Nagao, Machine translation and beyond
- 1987: Desmond Smith, Computing with the speed of light