[2] In 1962, he obtained his PhD cum laude from the University of Groningen, with a dissertation titled: "An NMR study of collagen hydration".
In March 1963, Berendsen was appointed lector of physical chemistry at his alma mater, and four years later became full professor.
[3] In 1976, Berendsen and Wilfred van Gunsteren together with the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winners Martin Karplus and Michael Levitt were involved in the start of theories on molecular calculating.
[5] In 2013 he was awarded the Berni J. Alder Prize by the Centre européen de calcul atomique et moléculaire.
The jury amongst other points praised his development of the GROningen MOlecular Simulation (GROMOS) type of force field.