crowdfunding in academia: edview - maastricht university

October 2018

A match made in Maastricht: Alexander and Lisa

Brüggen

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Crowdfunding in academia: exception or future reality?

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EDview: a vision for the

future of Problem-

Based Learning

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on education and research at Maastricht University

Photo Sacha Ruland

to some 35% of student rooms on offer in Maastricht, allowing students to separate the wheat from the chaff remotely. For situations in which the supply is not up to standard and complaints arise, the university and the municipality have set up the Housing Helpdesk, which supports more than 200 students annually in conflicts with landlords.

Student rooms also need to be vacated more quickly by those who no longer belong to the target market. To this end, UM is working to develop more starter homes for its graduates in Maastricht and the surrounding area.

All this should ensure that provisions for students will gradually expand with the student body. The Dutch and international student population at UM has grown again this year. By working with other parties to increase the (affordable) living space now, we are hopeful that Maastricht will be spared a student housing crisis in the future. <<

/ More room for Maastricht students/

For people with dementia, so-called “care farms” provide a much improved experience. And in nursing homes in South Limburg, the doors are no longer locked. The purpose of these changes in long-term care is to improve the quality of life of vulnerable older people. At the Living Lab in Ageing and Long-Term Care in South Limburg, these improvements go hand in hand with high-quality scientific research.

Maarten van Rossum is a diplomat and adviser to Prime Minister Mark Rutte. His time as a student at Maastricht University prepared him well for his career and his later passion: teaching people how to negoti-ate more effectively. “You can improve the relationship by viewing the other not as an adversary but as a conversation partner, someone you’re solving a problem with.”

Maastricht University (UM) is gearing up to conduct more research in the area of fundamental physics. “The aim is to put UM on the map as a physics institute, in the eyes of other research-ers as well as the general public,” says Gideon Koekoek, who joined UM’s research group on gravitational waves in 2017. “The construction of the Einstein Telescope in South Limburg between 2020 and 2030 could, if it eventuates, have an enormous impact from a technological perspective, but also socioeconomically.”

Further

04 Education

EDview: a vision for the future of Problem-Based Learning

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PortraitAlex and Lisa Brüggen: A match made in

Maastricht -----19

Innovative research Marieke Hopman and Chahinda Ghossein-

Doha: Crowdfunding in academia: exception or future reality?

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Photo spreadOpening of the new Tapijn garden

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Professor-StudentPim Martens and Bingtao Su: Does my turtle

look disappointed?

27 International

Hylke Dijkstra and Petar Petrov: The EU as peacemaker

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Euregion Pilar Martinez: Relationship between

lipids and Alzheimer’s -----38

Alum Bibi van Dijck: Bringing more joy into

the world -----40

University Fund- Interview with Bouwien Janssen-Kuijpers,

new director of Development & Alumni Relations and the Limburg University Fund

- News -----

7, 11, 32 and 42 News

Talented photographers were asked to come up with an image relating to one of our cover stories. Rafaël Philippen (Geleen, 1972) is a graduate of AKV/ St Joost in Breda.

“Photographer Rafaël Philippen is constantly amazed by the world. His is an innocent gaze, not unlike like that of the deer sunbathing in the grass in one of his photos. As though oblivious to evil. Perhaps a tad naive, and sometimes unabashedly romantic, but certainly open-minded.” Ruud Visschedijk, former director of Nederlands Foto Museum.

www.rafaelphilippen.nl

Cover Rafaël Philippen

October 2018

A match made in Maastricht: Lisa and Alexander

Brüggen

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Crowdfunding in academia: Exception or future reality?

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future of Problem-

Based Learning

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Alum Maarten van Rossum

Living Lab in Ageing and Long-Term Care celebrates 20th anniversary

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/ Physics booming at UM /

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3October 2018 / UMagazine

The primary task of a university is to provide first-class education and research. If the town or city in which it is located does not offer students a desirable living situation in all respects, the university must take responsibility for providing suitable sporting facilities, for example, or affordable student rooms.

UM has been cooperating for years with various parties – the municipality, housing corporations and private providers – to minimise potential frictions in the local student housing market. Due to the growing economy, that market is now under even more pressure. To ensure that education remains accessible for everyone, UM committed this year to creating additional student rooms in the lower and middle segments. The expansion of the UM Guesthouse at Annadal adds some 250 rooms to the student room market in the lower price range. Unfortunately, the first residents of the new Guesthouse were inconven-ienced by construction delays, but the renovation is now complete.

Working with private room providers, the university has also created the ‘Prettig Wonen’ quality label, which provides a guarantee on aspects such as safety and affordability. The housing corporations are now striving to have all their rooms receive the quality label within two years. If they succeed, the label will apply

Maastricht University Executive BoardMartin Paul, Rianne Letschert and Nick Bos

2UMagazine / October 2018

Text Florian RaithPhotography Philip Driessen

Leading in Learning

/ However many steps – to each problem its solution /

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is a cornerstone of Maastricht University’s identity. It is iconic, yet a lot less monolithic than one might assume. Wary of resting on its ‘leading in learning’ laurels, UM commissioned research into the practices, problems and potential of its educational philosophy – all with a view to formulating a vision for the future.

Junior Project Manager EDLAB

Sebastian Hühne

Assistant professor School of Health

Professions / Project Manager EDLAB

Janneke Frambach

Graduate UCM / Project Manager

EDLAB Stella Wasenitz

UM’s 40th anniversary in 2016 was cause for celebra-tion as well as reflection. In a fairly short time, it has grown from a small medical programme to an institution with six faculties and more than 16,000 students. The university’s commitment to PBL has survived expansion and internationalisation. But what is the current state of education at UM, what its future?

To address these questions, EDview was launched: a collaboration between EDLAB (the UM institute for education innovation) and the Department of Education-al Development and Research at the FHML. Project managers Janneke Frambach and Stella Wasenitz as well as Sebastian Hühne, junior project manager at EDLAB, surveyed almost 2,000 stakeholders and conducted focus groups and interviews across all faculties.

Better translation into practice “We look not just at what happens in tutorials, or even just at PBL, but at education in general and how it can be further improved,” explains Frambach. “We want to look at the diversity that has emerged here in the last decade or two to see how we diverge and what we can learn from one another.”

EDview is unlikely to trigger a revolution, however. The results show broad support for the theory behind PBL, and a strong desire to further improve it in practice. “Some respondents wrote thousand-word essays in the comment fields!” Wasenitz clearly shares their enthusiasm: during her bachelor’s programme at UCM, she herself took part in a think tank to improve PBL.

A philosophy, not a rule book EDview has managed to tease out several points for improvement, including ‘constructive alignment’. “UM made a momentous choice by subscribing to the PBL philosophy,” Wasenitz explains. “That should influence everything, from teaching and learning to assessments.” Most of all, it is vital not to see PBL as dogma but to draw attention to its diversity and its untapped potential. >>




Sebastian Hühne(1993) is a junior project manager at EDLAB. After graduating from UCM in July 2018, he took over Wasenitz’s position in the EDview project.

Janneke Frambach(1983) Frambach is assistant professor at the School of Health Profes-sions Education (SHE) and the Department of Educa-tional Development and Research. She holds a PhD in Educational Sciences from UM. Her research focuses on cultural diver-sity and globalisation in medical education.

EDview symposiumThe Executive Board and deans of UM will deliver their official response to the project at the EDview Symposium on 23 Octo-ber. The symposium will showcase the results of the project, with panel and fishbowl discussions as well as workshops and speeches.

Stella Wasenitz(1994) graduated from UCM in 2016 and worked as a project manager at EDLAB until August 2018. She will begin a graduate programme at the Teach-ers College of Columbia University later this year, supported by a Fulbright scholarship.

As with so many other things, the successful imple-mentation of EDview’s recommendations is contingent on the allocation of resources. Frambach and Wasenitz have presented their findings to various stakeholders, including the Executive Board and faculty deans – and were very encouraged by the reception. “We expected much more resistance, because the report mostly focused on points for improvement,” Wasenitz recalls. “But everyone was nodding and really keen to find solutions.” <<

As well as teaching knowledge and skills, PBL should teach the ability to acquire knowledge and skills. Its core principles are captured in the keywords construc-tive, collaborative, contextual and self-directed (CCCS). At UM, the ‘seven-step approach’ helps educators live up to these principles: clarify difficult terms in the problem case, formulate a problem statement, brainstorm, structure the outcomes, formulate learning objectives, study independently and, finally, discuss the findings. While a natural way of solving problems, many perceive this model to be too restrictive.

Empowering teachers “Why do we still cling to the seven steps as though it’s an end in itself rather than a means?” Frambach asks. She highlights a web of interconnected factors: marketing and communication, PBL training and support for students and teachers, educational leader - ship and HR policies. “We should create an environment with space for creative endeavour, as well as enough guidance to prevent insecurity about what is expected from teachers.” This would include exchanging knowledge, providing best practice examples and communi-cating clearly that teachers are free to interpret the methodology to suit the intended learning outcomes.

“How can students best learn specific competencies?” Frambach thinks that teachers, in co-creation with their students, are in the best position to come up with and refine bespoke answers. “The seven-step approach obviously fits the patient case in medicine, but it doesn’t make sense to try to fit each and every problem into the same structure. In the humanities, you might want to critically discuss a book without collectively formulating learning goals for the next session. There are different ways of translating the principles according to different needs.”

A desire to improve From the Maastricht Science Programme’s Research-Based Learning to the law faculty’s moot courts, where students play the role of prosecutors and defence counsel, a range of creative approaches are already being used. “Our recommendations are largely based on things that are already happening through-out UM. We just tried to come up with concrete Do’s and Don’ts based on our research. More importantly, we ask: under what conditions can this broader approach to PBL flourish? We can still do more to cultivate a vibrant educational culture.”

On Monday 3 September 2018, Maastricht University (UM) celebrated the official opening of the academic year 2018/19. This year’s theme revolved around the responsibility that today’s universities bear for sustainable development. The keynote speakers were Frans Timmermans, first Vice-President of the European Commission; Kate Robertson, co-founder of One Young World; Dag Rune Olsen, rector of the University of Bergen; and Joost van den Akker, member of the Limburg Provincial Executive for Economy and Knowledge Infrastructure.

Sustainable Development Goals contest For the morning session, students from the UM Green Office organised a symposium on behavioural change. How can we encourage people to make the right decisions in their everyday lives? Student and staff participants of a recent contest presented their project ideas for achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. First place went to Daan Bressers and team, who proposed a sustainable UM cup for takeaway coffee.

Student Award 2018 Six students were nominated for the UM Student Award, a prize awarded to students for outstanding contributions to society and culture. Julie Ann Garcia Goodfellow was declared the winner. Having grown up in the slums of the Philippines, she found her way to the Netherlands to study. Now she is president of the same foundation that offered her that opportunity: the Goodfellow Foundation. She sponsors six university students in the Philippines, and is convinced that providing education and support for young women in the slums has the power to change lives.

Edmond Hustinx Prize for Science This prize is awarded annually to a promising young scientist or scholar at UM to support their academic development. This year, the €15,000 prize went to Dr Andrea Broderick from the Faculty of Law. Her research focuses on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). <<

News

Opening of the academic year 2018/19

Keynote speakers (from left): Joost van den Akker, Dag Rune Olsen, Frans Timmermans and Kate Robertson

(from left) Martin Paul, Daan Bresser and Pim Martens

Rianne Letschert and Julie Ann Garcia Goodfellow

Rianne Letschert and Andrea Broderick



/ Physics booming at UM /

Maastricht University (UM) is gearing up to conduct more research in the area of fundamental physics. “The aim is to put UM on the map as a physics institute, in the eyes of other researchers as well as the general public,” says Gideon Koekoek, who joined UM’s research group on gravitational waves in 2017. “The construction of the Einstein Telescope in South Limburg between 2020 and 2030 could, if it eventuates, have an enormous impact from a technological perspective, but also socioeconomically.” >>

Maastricht University officially joined the Einstein Telescope Coalition of Nikhef and KU Leuven. The coalition will investigate the scientific and technological feasibility of establishing the Einstein Telescope in the border region around South Limburg.

During the Einstein Telescope meeting on September 13th in Maastricht, UM and the other partner universities signed: RWTH Aachen, UC Louvain, UHasselt, Ghent University, University of Antwerp, VUB Brussels, ULB Brussels, University of Liege, Radboud University Nijmegen, TU Eindhoven and Hamburg University.

Lecturer Theoretical Physics Gideon Koekoek

Text Graziella RunchinaPhotography Arjen Schmitz

Research and society




Physics is a relatively new field at UM. The Maastricht Science Programme (MSP) has been running successfully since 2011, offering a broad-based bachelor’s programme in the natural sciences. Until recently, however, the programme was not linked to ongoing research in fundamental physics, such as that on gravitational waves. That changed a year ago, when UM joined forces with the National Institute for Subatomic Physics (Nikhef) in Amsterdam. Research on gravitational waves is set to provide a treasure trove of new information about the universe for decades to come. By investing in this research, UM will be able to position itself as a key player in this important new field.

Revolutionary observation According to Koekoek, an MSP lecturer in theoretical physics, recent years have seen a boom in research on gravitational waves. This can be traced back, at least in part, to the announcement in 2016 that gravitational waves originating from black holes in the process of merging had been measured for the first time. A revolutionary observation for which its discover-ers, Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne and Barry Barish, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics the following year.

Albert Einstein “The basis for this Nobel Prize was laid over a hundred years ago by Albert Einstein,” Koekoek explains. “In 1916 he posited that heavy objects such as stars not only distort spacetime – as described in his

Gideon Koekoek (1979) graduated cum laude in theoretical physics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He obtained his PhD on gravitational waves under Professor Jo van den Brand in the VIRGO group at the National Institute for Subatomic Physics (Nikhef) in Amsterdam. He previously worked as a physics teacher at a high school in Amsterdam Zuid and as a lecturer at Leiden University. For several years he also delivered a technically advanced series of lectures at VU Amsterdam. Since 2017, he has been an assistant professor at UM, where he conducts research on gravitational waves in collaboration with Nikhef and lectures on theoretical physics at the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

theory of relativity – but can also cause waves, which travel at the speed of light through the universe. He wasn’t convinced we’d ever be able to measure these gravitational waves; the effect is too small for that.” Einstein turned out to be both right and wrong. “We now know that gravitational waves exist and that they are measureable, a discovery that a few years ago shook the world to its very foundations. It paved the way for a new research field and gave scientists the tools to explore the universe in an entirely new way. At UM, naturally we’re keen to get involved.”

Underground laboratory To measure gravitational waves with the greatest possible precision, a new tool is needed: the Einstein Telescope. The Limburg municipality of Heuvelland is, along with Hungary and the Italian island of Sardinia, among the top three potential locations for the telescope, which is to be built in the form of a prestigious laboratory on a vibration-free site 100 metres underground, with tentacles stretching out some 10 kilometres. In cooperation with a large number of academic partners, including UM, a lobby has been established and is working day and night to bring the Einstein Telescope to South Limburg.

Strong contender According to Koekoek, the good soil composition in South Limburg makes the region a strong contender. “Bringing the Einstein Telescope here would give a boost to the entire region. Not only from a scientific perspective, but also socioeconomically. It will create jobs and attract researchers. Internationally, more than a thousand scientists are collaborating on the research into gravitational waves. If, somewhere between 2020 and 2022, the choice is made to establish the telescope in Limburg, that will add enormous value to the region which will also reflect favourably on UM. The faculty would immediately be linked with the world’s highest quality science and technology, meaning it would no longer be possible for the scientific leaders of the world to get around Maastricht.”

Depth and breadth Koekoek is convinced that UM will make an important contribution to the research on gravitational waves in the coming years. “Our ambition is to better connect with current research around the world in the field of fundamental physics. The foundation of the Faculty of Science and Engineering in May this year will also help us to expand the depth and breadth of our teaching and research.” In addition, UM is now a member of the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration, the international team of academics leading the research on gravitational waves. The international LIGO/Virgo conference was held in Maastricht in early September, hosted by UM. “We’re just getting started,” Koekoek says. “But soon, nobody will turn their noses up at our physics.” <<

News

New Youth, Food and Health chair in Venlo

Scientists from Maastricht University have demonstrated for the first time that a reversal of people’s circadian rhythm leads to a disturbance in blood sugar levels. The research shows that a disruption of the biological clock – due to shift work, for example – results in lower insulin sensitivity, an important indicator for the development of type 2 diabetes. The findings of the Maastricht research team, led by Professor Patrick Schrauwen, were recently published in the renowned journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The study responds to one of the most pressing questions from the Dutch National Research Agenda: what are the effects of the advancing 24-hour economy on people’s health? This not only concerns the tradition-al night work done by nurses or police officers: these days we are all online, all the time, which means we are constantly being stimulated. Travelling between different time zones is also much more common than it used to be. One side effect is that people do not sleep as well. Disturbances in our natural circadian rhythm have already been

linked to disruptions in eating patterns, obesity and the risk of developing cancer. This latest research from Maastricht shows that a disrupted circadian rhythm also contributes to a reduction in insulin sensitivity, which is an important indicator for the development of type 2 diabetes.

“The biological clock is located not only in our brain, but in every cell in our body”, says researcher Jakob Wefers. “We discovered that this biological clock did not adapt to the new timetable: the molecular biological clock in the muscle was clearly still running on the old time. This probably explains why the insulin sensitivity of the muscle also decreased. Which could, in turn, explain the increased risk of type 2 diabetes in people who do shift work.” Further research is needed to demonstrate whether a disruption of the circadian rhythm actually leads to type 2 diabetes. <<

Disrupted circadian rhythm increases risk of type 2 diabetes

Maastricht University has joined forces with regional companies to develop the new professorial chair on Youth, Food and Health. The professor to be appointed will teach at the Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo and conduct research on healthy eating patterns in young people.

Healthy and safe food is the key theme at this Brightlands campus, which is home to research companies and academic institutes

experience how a university education and applied scientific research can complement one another. This cooperation between the university and regional companies will help to further anchor UCV in the city of Venlo.

The chair will be funded for at least five years by Scelta Mushrooms, ZON Fruit & Veg-etables, BASF, Seacon Logistics and regional Rabobank branches. The Kids University of Cooking will provide a field lab with educa-tional programmes for children. <<

alike. UM opened new labs there several months ago and is conducting research on all facets of nutrition.

The recruitment process is underway to find a leading academic, from the Netherlands or abroad, to work for UM and the Bright-lands campus in Venlo. The new chair will be embedded within University College Venlo (UCV), providing innovative and inspiring education which allows students to

Patrick Schrauwen11

October 2018 / UMagazine11

October 2018 / UMagazine

Text Karen Shook Photography Arjen Schmitz

In at least one lively, laughter-filled Maastricht home, one date in early autumn will always be a red-letter day. On 14 September, 17 years after they first met, a gregarious, goal-oriented optimist named Lisa and a dry-witted, bee-keeping realist named Alex celebrated becoming Professors Brüggen and Brüggen in the company of family, friends and colleagues. The SBE scholars who share a last name and a life together reflect on coincidence and coffee, private and professional spheres, and Lufthansa’s esteem for academic titles.

Portrait

/ A match made in Maastricht: Alex and Lisa Brüggen /

Professor of Financial Services

Lisa Brüggen

Professor of Management Accounting

Alexander Brüggen



In a university famed for its small-scale education, most School of Business and Economics (SBE) undergraduates cross paths at some point or another. But it nearly didn’t happen for Alex and Lisa, two German students who ended up in Maastricht thanks to his chance glance at “a little open-day advertise-ment in a high-school magazine” and her “good feeling” during a last-minute visit. But – spoiler alert; they’re now husband and wife, professor of manage-ment accounting and professor of financial services – their paths crossed after all.

“My cousin knew Alex and thought he’d be a great guy for me, but never managed to introduce us,” Lisa explains. “Somehow, during the whole time we were undergraduates, we never met.” “I think we had a course together, though,” Alex interjects, “so I knew you by sight.”

Lisa: “But the first time we spoke was at my gradua-tion.” “When I congratulated you,” Alex smiles. “It was a Friday in mid-September, 2001,” Lisa muses. “Wouldn’t it be funny if our inaugural lecture was 17 years to the day from then?” She checks her calendar. “It was exactly 14 September 2001. Can you believe that?” Alex smiles again.

Border crossings His father passed away before he was born, Alex recounts, and he and his brother were raised in a village near Cologne by his mother, one of four sisters; it was “a women’s family, really, and to some extent that influenced me”. Keen to “do something a little different”, he reckoned that “with business you can always do something, and at least get a decent job.” A chat at an open day with an SBE academic convinced him to head to Holland. >>

By the time she was 10, Lisa’s “loud and lively” family had moved five times, settling at last in Niederrhein, near the Dutch border. “My father studied business, and when I was younger I got some experience working at his company. I wanted to study in English and do something different. I still remember liking the SBE building very much. Sometimes it’s little things – irrational or not – that drive choices.”

First, find an accountant… When both Lisa and Alex stayed on at SBE for their PhDs, an introductory course for doctoral students played the role of Cupid. “It wasn’t the most romantic setting,” Alex admits. “Different departments ran modules, and the accounting department’s assign-ment involved small-group work. For me the work wasn’t too difficult, but Lisa wasn’t familiar with accounting – and was totally uninterested. She obviously thought, ‘If we get the accounting guy on board, we’ll get a pass’. So that’s how it all started.”

Lisa laughs. “That’s more or less true, but I did it all in a very charming way,” she protests. “And I contributed too, didn’t I?” “You definitely bought the coffee,” winks her husband. “It’s the overall group effort that counts.”

Wedding bells and new careers By 2006, both had their doctorates; by 2007, they’d had civil and church weddings, and were assistant professors at SBE. “These days it’s less common for universities to hire their own PhD students; I think I was the second-last in my department,” Lisa says. “We were so lucky that we had the chance to stay in an environment where we could develop and flourish.” However, both would spend time abroad and apart: as a doctoral candidate, Lisa went to the Arizona State University, and Alex had a stint at Michigan State University as a research fellow. “It was difficult, but we decided that if we couldn’t be apart for four months, perhaps our relationship wasn’t strong enough to last,” Lisa recalls. “We knew we’d manage.”

Their time in America – and, during a joint sabbatical in 2012, Australia – made Alex “value European institutions much more”, he says. “It’s very inspiring to be in the US, and I saw that academics there knew how to play the publishing game a little better. But I also saw the value of what we have here.” “We realised how much we like Maastricht and the Netherlands,” Lisa adds. “Some people say the Dutch are a bit too bold, but I appreciate their honesty, and ability to cut through the hierarchy and the bla-bla-bla. You know what you get here: good constructive discussions, and critical thinkers.”

Team efforts and matching titles Although the professors Brüggen are members of the same SBE research theme, Human Decisions and Policy Design, they have no interest in co-authoring papers – especially after one less-than-fruitful attempt. “We quickly saw it wasn’t working out, and decided we’d rather keep our professional and private sides a little more separate,” Lisa recalls.

Do they ever feel competitive twinges across the breakfast table? “No,” says Alex. “Our fields are too different to be directly comparable. Although we’re both focused on our careers, sometimes it’s Lisa who’s more focused and me a little less; sometimes the reverse.” “Neither of us is jealous,” Lisa adds. “Alex got tenure much sooner than I did, which I thought was great, because it gave us more security. If they’d decided I wasn’t worthy of a chair, it would’ve been disappointing, but not because Alex became a professor and I didn’t.”

But all went well, and by November 2017, they could have booked a restaurant table under the names Professor Brüggen and Professor Brüggen. “Funnily enough, we still haven’t done it,” says Lisa. “Of course in Holland it doesn’t really matter, but in Germany it

definitely would.” Is it that much more exciting for Germans to become professors? “Maybe,” she laughs. “Although it’s not so much the title that’s important, but the rights that come with it. You’re no longer dependent on another professor, and it’s easier to direct your own research and select the people you want to work with.”

“We never use the title unless we’re booking a flight with Lufthansa, which is the only airline that asks if you’re Herr or Frau Professor,” Alex says. “Although people outside the academic world do look at you a little differently than if you say you’re an assistant or associate professor, when they assume you must do something, administrative work possibly, for Herr Professor.” “Whereas in the academic world,” adds his wife, “you tend to be judged not on your title but on what you can or can’t do.”

Different tribes, shared spotlight Inaugural lectures are a chance for new professors to bask in the spotlight. Why share the glory? “Shorter speeches!” grins Alex. “And I’ve never thought sharing the glory would be a bad thing.” Anyway, says Lisa, “we realised that 80% of the people we’d want to invite would be the same. So Alex was nice enough to say, ‘I’ll wait for you – and let’s have one really big party’.”

“We supported each other a lot along the way,” she continues. “Standing there together made it feel really special. It says something about our relationship that we managed this, along with raising our daughters Matilda and Paulina and being there for them.”

Despite coming from the “different tribes” of accounting and marketing, their inaugural lectures fit surprisingly well together. “There was more overlap than we thought,” Alex confirms. Lisa: “We both focus on decision making, in different contexts and at different levels: I look more at financial decision making and retirement planning, and Alex at decisions within organisations.”

Chairs, benches and holding hands Where do Lisa – the generous, warm-hearted perfectionist and slightly reckless driver, according to her husband – and Alex – the humorous, occasionally absent-minded professor fond of intoning “it is what it is”, says his wife – see themselves 20 years after taking up their professorial chairs?

“Still together, still having something to say to each other, still being nice to each other,” Lisa smiles. “The great thing about being a professor is that you can develop in so many ways. Time will tell.”

“Professionally, I’ve no idea, to be honest,” shrugs Alex. “But I know the two of us will be sitting on a bench somewhere, holding hands, being happy together.” <<

Alexander Brüggen (1976) was born in Cologne, Germany, and studied International Business at Maastricht University, gaining his doctorate in accounting in 2005. His main research interests are performance evaluation and incentive schemes, internal capital markets and experimen-tal research in accounting. He was appointed professor of Management Accounting in 2017 and is director of executive programmes at UMIO.

Lisa Brüggen (1977) was raised in Sevelen, Germany, and studied International Manage-ment at Maastricht University. She completed her PhD in marketing in 2006. An expert on pension communication, she is a board member of the National Institute for Family Finance Informa-tion (Nibud). She became professor of Financial Services in 2017 and leads the Human Decisions and Policy Design research theme at the School of Business and Economics.

We had the chance to stay in an environ-

ment where we could

develop and flourish.



Expertise

Text Mark van der Linde Photography Harry Heuts


Professor of Care of Older PeopleJan Hamers

For people with dementia, so-called “care farms” provide a much improved experience. And in nursing homes in South Limburg, the doors are no longer locked. The purpose of these changes in long-term care is to improve the quality of life of vulnerable older people. At the Living Lab in Ageing and Long-Term Care in South Limburg, these improvements go hand in hand with high-quality scientific research.

/ Living Lab in Ageing and Long-Term Care: a unique selling point for UM /

A bottle of good champagne is displayed prominently on his desk: a gift from Raymond Koopmans, professor of Old Age Medicine at Radboud University Nijmegen, on behalf of the five other Academic Collaborative Networks on Care for Older People in the Netherlands. A thank-you card is still attached to the neck of the bottle: “We have great respect for your dedication!” Last spring, the Nether-lands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) allocated up to €4.2 million per year to the six Academic Collaborative Networks on Care for Older People for research on long-term elderly care. The decision followed two years of intensive negotiations in which Jan Hamers, professor of Care of Older People at Maastricht University, played a key role. It feels a little like the crowning achievement of his work, Hamers says.

It all began in October 1998, with a tentative collaboration between his research group and a single nursing home in Kerkrade. Since then, it has grown into a partnership between seven Limburg care organisations (MeanderGroep Zuid-Limburg, Sevagram, Envida, Cicero Zorggroep, Zuyderland, Vivantes and Mosae Zorggroep) and three knowledge institutions (Gilde Intermediate Vocational Training, Zuyd University of Applied Sciences and Maastricht University). This year, the Living Lab celebrates its 20th anniversary.

Impact As Hamers sees it, securing structural funding was an important victory. “In the early years of the Living Lab, the care of older people went from incident to incident”, he says. “The government occasionally spent extra money on it, but rarely with a clear vision and >>


thus with little effect. Considering the size of this sector, there’s shockingly little money for knowledge development. The idea behind the Living Lab was to generate as much impact as possible with limited research resources. For example, in 2000 physical restraints were used in one in three nursing-home residents. About 10 years ago, we developed an intervention to prevent and reduce the use of physical restraints in nursing homes in Limburg. The introduc-tion of restraint-free care makes us not only a pioneer in the Netherlands and abroad, but also – along with several of our other research projects – served as input for the new Dutch Care and Coercion Act that will come into force on 1 January 2020. The Living Lab was always intended to have an impact this way: top scientific quality, while also providing a clear impetus for healthcare practice, policy and education from vocational to university level. Ultimately, our goal is to change care practice and really improve long-term care for the future, both at home and in nursing homes.”

Joint appointments Hamers has no doubt as to the secret of the Living Lab’s success: “Joint appointments! University staff are seconded to care organisations, and care staff – nurses, physiotherapists, doctors – are posted to universities. We also work with ‘linking pins’; each organisation has its own point of contact. Without this kind of cross- fertilisation we’d never have accomplished this level of success.” A good example of this cross-fertilisation is the research project Anders Meten. “The aim is to develop a new method of measuring the quality of care, from the recipient’s point of view. Instead of using standard evaluation forms, we have nurses conduct interviews from three perspectives: resident, family and caregiver. The nurses are trained to conduct these interviews by UMIO, the institute for profession-al education at the UM School of Business and Economics. They don’t do the interviews at their own organisations, of course: nurses from one care organisation interview residents at a different organisation. In this way, the Living Lab contributes to building a learning network in which care organisations learn directly from one another.”

International The Living Lab approach has attracted much international attention, from Canada to South Korea. “The University of Leeds has set up a similar pro-gramme with our help. Actually, you could say that Leeds has basically copied us; the Brits are very enthusiastic. In that sense, our approach to long-term care is a unique selling point for UM.” The Living Lab is increasingly conducting research beyond the borders of Limburg as well. “We’re currently working on a Horizon 2020 project in Lisbon, for example, which is setting up a Living Lab at the intersection of long-term care, technology and health tourism. It’s nice to get that recognition. Based on another major European FP7 project, we concluded that the Netherlands is the European allround champion when it comes to care of older people,” Hamers says. “I often get requests from other countries and other regions in the Netherlands looking for advice on setting up their own Living Lab. I always try to tell them it’s better to start with a partnership between two organisations. There’s a reason it took us 20 years to get to where we are now. As for the future, I’d like to expand across the Euregion ...” <<

The symposium ‘20 years of the Living Lab|Past Present Future’ will be held at the MECC on 14 December. Speak-ers include Professor Erik Scherder of VU Amsterdam and Kees van de Burg, Director-General of Long-Term Care at the Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports. Professor Sandra Zwakhalen (Living Lab) will deliver her inaugural lecture during the symposium.

Admission is free. Register via www.academischewerkplaatsouderenzorg.nl/aanmelden-20-jaar

Jan Hamers (1966) is professor of Care of Older People at Maastricht University. He is also the founder and director of the Living Lab in Ageing and Long-Term Care, visiting professor at the University of Leeds and chair of the Dutch Scientific College of Nursing. Hamers and his group conduct research on the effectiveness of healthcare and the organisation of care processes.

/ Crowdfunding in academia: exception or future reality? /Text Annelotte Huiskes Photography Paul van der Veer

PhD studentMarieke Hopman

Cardiology traineeChahinda Ghossein-Doha

Innovative research




If you can’t persuade official funding bodies of the merit of your research proposal, is crowdfunding a viable alternative? Some researchers are already using online platforms and social media campaigns to raise money for their work. Here, Chahinda Ghossein-Doha and Marieke Hopman talk about their experiences with crowd-funding. Does the effort outweigh the benefits?

No, says Hopman right off the bat. And she would know: she was one of the first people in the Nether-lands to crowdfund her PhD research, attracting the attention of the national press along the way. “But I’d already been involved in crowdfunding before that. During my master’s in philosophy at the UvA I met General Roméo Dallaire, the leader of the UM relief mission in Rwanda, at the screening of a documentary on child soldiers. It made such an impression on me that I decided to do the fieldwork for my thesis on child soldiers in Rwanda. But I didn’t have the money for the trip. That’s how it started.” Most donors were friends and family. “But some of them I didn’t know personally. They kept tabs on the research and even came to my graduation. That’s how engaged they felt, which is great.”

Putting yourself on the market After her master’s, Hopman wanted nothing more than to carry on with this kind of legal-philosophical, field-based research on children’s rights. She submit-ted a research proposal to the Netherlands Organisa-tion for Scientific Research (NWO) in the hope of fund-ing her PhD. When that was rejected, she turned once more to crowdfunding. Together with the Limburg University Fund, Hopman set up the Children’s Rights Research Fund. Each year she has to raise €30,000. “I spent the first three months crowdfunding full time. All my friends contributed something: we made a campaign song you could download from iTunes and a video. I did a bunch of media appearances, I have a website and I’m active on social media. Crowdfunding only works if you involve a lot of people. You’re con-stantly trying to get people on board. That said, I get most of the money not from donors, but by doing a lot of voluntary work alongside my research. Those or-ganisations will then donate to my fund. And I get that work, in turn, through my crowdfunding initiatives. It’s all linked. You put yourself on the market, people know about your research and one thing leads to another.”

Thinking outside the box Ghossein-Doha can relate to Hopman’s experience. Crowdfunding is time-consuming, but it does put your research in the spotlight. Ghossein-Doha stumbled across crowdfunding through the Dutch Heart Foun-dation. After completing her PhD two years ago, she submitted a grant application for a large-scale post-doctoral project on the relationship between abnor-malities in the blood vessels of the placenta and in the coronary artery of the heart. “If I can demonstrate that relationship, you could study the arterial calcification of a woman’s placenta after she has given birth and use that as a predictor of the risk of later heart failure. You could monitor those women from an earlier stage and give preventive medication or lifestyle advice to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases. I came up with this idea through my PhD research and that of a colleague. It was an out-of-the-box idea, because so far no one’s demonstrated a link between the placenta and the prediction of cardiovascular diseases.”

Her proposal was rejected because this link was deemed improbable. Ghossein-Doha spent the following year doing research alongside her work as a cardiology trainee to gather more evidence for her hypothesis. “I believe in it and I want to prove it, so you have to take those extra steps.”

Persuasive speaker Based on the new research material she received an innovation grant from the Heart Foundation, which entailed raising a portion of the money herself through crowdfunding. “We were given workshops on presenting, they made a video and we were able to use their platform. I learnt to explain my research in an accessible way and to pique people’s interest. Social media worked best, I found. Many of the reactions applauded the fact that I was raising the money myself. Initially you use your own network: family and friends. My husband was my first donor, and it spread from there. The highest individual contribution was €150, the larger amounts came from businesses. I still give many lectures about my research even though the

crowdfunding campaign is over, because it’s important to stay in touch with your donors. You never know when you’ll come across that one really rich donor.” Evidently, Ghossein-Doha is a persuasive speaker: she managed to raise €43,000 in three months. The Heart Foundation matches every euro up to a maximum of €30,000, which gave her a total of €73,000 to run her pilot study. This, she is hoping, will ultimately turn into a full-fledged research project funded by the Heart Foundation.

Making a difference Two stories, one conclusion: you need an unshake-able belief in your research and a great deal of perse-verance. “I’ve always been ambitious,” Ghossein-Doha says. “My parents fled Lebanon and had to give up a lot. They did that for their children. I want to get the most out of the sacrifices my parents made – but also I just enjoy doing it.” It was a personal choice to focus on pre-eclampsia. “I’m a mother of three myself. Al-though I didn’t have pre-eclampsia, I know how it feels

when something goes wrong during pregnancy: my first daughter died of a genetic disorder at 10 days old. You always carry that with you. Six years later I still have unanswered questions: what does it mean for me, for my other children? I don’t study that genetic disorder myself, it’s too close to home, but I hope my research can provide answers for mothers in a comparable situation. Just as I hope other research-ers will someday be able to give me answers.”

Hopman, too, is certain her research can make a difference. “During my PhD I came up with a new way of researching children’s rights. It’s not so much about what the law says, but about how children experience that law in their everyday lives. The method is based on Socratic dialogue, talking with children openly and on equal terms and really listen-ing to them. I want to give them a voice, so that local authorities can make better policies and NGOs can improve their interventions.” She hopes to complete her PhD later this year, and is already writing a grant application for a follow-up study. “It’s an NWO grant worth half a million euros, which, with my crowd-funding experience, I’ll be able to turn into €800,000. I’ve already approached the NGOs I collaborate with to see if they want to contribute time or money, and personally I’ll do more work than I’m paid for. That way I’ll be able to support two PhD students in Somaliland. Stretching money like this is in my blood: I grew up with very little, so I’m very aware of the value of money and I can live very frugally. And I’m an idealist.”

Exception For young researchers, crowdfunding is not yet the goose that lays golden eggs. “It takes a lot of time and work, an incredible amount of energy,” Hopman says. “I found the experience instructive, but also intense,” says Ghossein-Doha. “For me it was a third job, alongside my specialist training and my research.” <<

Marieke Hopman (1988) studied philosophy at Tilburg University and the University of Amsterdam. She hopes to complete her PhD later this year on the right to education in the Netherlands and the Central African Republic and the right to nationality in northern Cyprus. Her dissertation is provisionally entitled ‘Looking at law through children’s eyes’.

https://kinderrechtenonderzoek.nl

Chahinda Ghossein-Doha (1987) studied medicine at Maastricht University and did her PhD on cardiac adjustments during and after preg-nancy complications. She is now a cardiology trainee at the MUMC+ and affiliated with the Perinatal Research Institute Maastricht (PERIM). She is currently studying the possibility of using the placenta to predict the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

https://steunmijnonderzoek.hartstichting.nl/project/ghossein

October 2018

A match made in Maastricht: Lisa and Alexander

Brüggen

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Crowdfunding in academia: Exception or future reality?

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Based Learning

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Cover image by Rafaël Philippen


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Tapijn barracks: green, teaching and research

Photography Hugo Thomassen

Volunteers from the Tapijn Garden Foundation and students from the Maastricht Science Programme are creating a biological garden just outside the Maastricht city centre, on the grounds of the former Tapijn barracks. The garden has been relocated to make way for construction works, which will transform the site into a large public space with buildings to be used for UM teaching and research. The festive opening of the new Tapijn garden was held on 16 September. UM is the first European university to sign on to the WELL Building Standard, and as such will take steps to ensure that the design and use of the Tapijn buildings promote health and wellbeing. The site is expected to be completed around 2020. <<



If a labradoodle could speak, we would – to paraphrase Wittgen-stein – not be able to understand it. What gives our words meaning is a shared way of life, a way of making sense of the world. And yet, most people think their pets understand them or, at the very least, that their feelings are ana-logous to ours. To contribute to sustainable human-animal relationships, Bingtao Su, under the supervision of Pim Martens, researched the relationship between the ethical outlook of pet owners, their sense of attachment to their animal companions and their attribution of emotions to them.

Text Florian RaithPhotography Paul van der Veer

For her PhD, Su analysed data from two questionnaires with more than 4,000 respondents from the Nether-lands, China and Japan. She sought to answer three questions: How do participants’ ethical ideologies relate to their attitudes towards animals in general? Is there a correlation between how attached owners are to their pets and their attribution of emotion to the animals in question? And what is the environmental impact of companion animals?

As Su had suspected, awareness of animal welfare was lower in China than in the Netherlands. Japan’s results were similar to China’s. “Japan is a highly developed country and very open-minded about Western values. At the same time, it is firmly rooted in traditional Eastern culture, so we thought it would be an interesting point of comparison.”

Improving attitudes “Eastern countries are more collectivistic, so they tend to perceive animal welfare through the prism of a cost-benefit analysis,” Su explains. “Accordingly, they tend to be more tolerant towards things like medical experiments on animals. In Western countries, animal suffering is seen as an absolute evil.” Attitudes towards animals had already been studied in Western countries, but not in Eastern countries like China or Japan. “I thought it would be interesting and honestly, I think it would be good to improve Chinese and Japanese people’s attitudes towards animals.”

On the question of sustainable development, Su explored the environmental impact of companion animals’ food consumption, their so-called ‘ecological paw print’. It may sound adorable, but the facts are troubling: owning a large dog could increase your ecological footprint by almost 60% and your greenhouse gas emissions by more than 10%. The environmental impact of a large dog’s diet equals that of ten adults.

Su, who has a background in sociology as well as three turtles, has enjoyed her time in Maastricht. “The Dutch are very open and appreciate individual rights and freedom.” She picked Maastricht for her supervisor Pim Martens: “I already knew about him from his papers on sustainable development. I contacted him, we exchanged ideas, and I applied to the Chinese Scholarship Council.” She was successful, and in the course of her PhD Su published seven peer-reviewed papers. “Working together was a great experience. Pim is always approachable and very encouraging and reassuring.”

Making sustainability tangible Martens, for his part, enjoyed the collaboration too. “Su showed the perfect mix between seeking and valuing my opinion whilst still being independent and stubborn enough to make her own calls.” >>

/ Does my turtle look disappointed? /

PhD studentBingtao Su

Professor of Sustainable Development

Pim Martens

Professor / student



Internationalapproach things from the anthropocentric perspective and ask: what do people think about animals’ emotions?”

Turtle-steps towards greater awareness

Almost all pet owners in the study attributed primary emotions like anger, joy or fear to their cats and dogs. Secondary or more complex emotions, such as jealousy or shame, also came up in varying degrees. Interestingly, more than 70% percent of respondents in the Eastern countries attributed compassion to their pets, versus 28% in the Netherlands. “Compassion plays a pivotal role in many Eastern cultures; people might therefore be more aware of it and more likely to interpret their animals’ behaviour in that way.”

The philosopher Jeremy Bentham would have said of Wittgenstein’s pooch that it doesn’t matter whether he can reason or talk, only that he can suffer. And, slowly and steadily like a turtle, we should translate into action the realisation that animals – even the ones we don’t cuddle regularly – can suffer, and that how we treat them reflects on us. <<

He also praises her tremendous work ethic and her positivity, exemplified by the good grace with which she answered the recurring question if she’s ever eaten dog. (She hasn’t – in case you were wondering. Only a small minority of Chinese people do, and, due to stricter regulations, the practice is on its way out.)

Martens – a health scientist with a PhD in applied mathematics and two cats – tries to make sustainabili-ty more tangible so as to motivate people to change. “My kids are teenagers and I noticed that they couldn’t relate to a lot of my research on sustainability, except for when topics like animal welfare came up.” He had already researched zoos and animal welfare, so working with Su on the perception of animal emotions was a good fit. “Of course, sustainability is mostly about the economy, technology and numbers, but for me it’s really a question of how we respect nature, each other and animals.”

“Our emotions have an evolutionary function, so we can assume that animals can experience some kind of emotions. And that’s increasingly backed up by neuroscience,” he explains. “Still, what we’ve done is

it’s really a question of how we

respect nature, each other and animals.

Pim Martens (1968) is professor of Sustainable Development at UM and extraordinary professor at Stellenbosch University. He has conducted research at ETH Zurich, Heidelberg University, Harvard University, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and elsewhere. He is the founder of AnimalWise, a ‘think and do tank’ working towards a better relationship with animals.

Bingtao Su (1987) has a PhD in Sustainability Science with a focus on sustainable human-animal relationships. The title of her thesis is ‘Human-animal relationships: A cross-cultural comparison of human attitudes towards animals’. Prior to coming to Maas-tricht, she studied sociology at Northwest A&F University, China.

/ The EU as peacemaker /Text Hans van VinkeveenIllustrations Ted Struwer



Petar Petrov (1976) is a tenured assistant professor in International Relations and EU Foreign and Security Policy at Maastricht University. He was previously a visiting research fellow at the University of Manchester, where he analysed the EU’s state-building capacity in the context of its civilian missions in the Western Balkans. He publishes on EU crisis management and conflict prevention, European defence cooperation in capacity development, and strategic culture in security and defence.


Cooperation pays off Good intentions aside, the question is whether the EU is capable of playing this international role. In their recent project, Dijkstra and Petrov analysed the EU’s contribution to world peace and security. The focus lay on the development of civilian resources in the EU (such as police officers, judges and cyber specialists), and the exchange of these resources between the EU and international organisations like the UN and the OSCE. The project was unusually large in scale, with 11 international partner organisations and more than 25 researchers. Through interviews with policymakers in Brussels and stakeholders in the conflict areas, the researchers were able to arrive at a series of recom-mendations.

One of their findings is that the success of an EU mis-sion depends greatly on how well the other organisa-tions do their work. In short, cooperation pays off. This holds true both at an institutional and an informal level, Petrov explains. “It matters whether there are official agreements between organisations. In addi-tion, informal agreements on the ground are crucial in order to perform core tasks. For instance, in Kosovo the EU makes ad-hoc use of NATO resources, although formally the two organisations operate independent-ly.” In practice, international institutions often work at cross-purposes. One solution, the researchers suggest, would be to develop a joint strategic approach for conflict areas.

Hylke Dijkstra (1983) is programme director of the MA in European Studies at Maastricht University. He was previously a Marie Curie fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations of the University of Oxford, where he was affiliated with Nuffield College. He has published widely on EU security, NATO and UN peacekeeping. Recently Dijkstra has been awarded a prestigious € 1.5 million ERC Starting Grant to analyse the decline and death of international organisations.


You don’t have to be a Eurosceptic to wonder: why should the EU interfere in problems elsewhere, espe-cially when there are organisations dedicated to doing exactly that (the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe)? Not to mention the EU’s full plate at home, with internal difficulties between member states, anti-European sentiment and, of course, the issue of migration. Yet still the or-ganisation aspires to be a global player in world peace and security: the ambition is official policy, no less, laid down in the European Union Global Strategy.

One answer is that the EU wants to protect its citizens, regardless of the location. “That’s the basis of the EU’s peace policy,” Dijkstra explains. “This is why it gets in-volved in crisis missions to Somalia and people smug-gling in the Mediterranean. What is special is that its approach integrates all sorts of civilian domains, such as trade, the environment and energy.” “The EU wants to be seen as a civilian player,” Petrov adds. “And it manages to do so because it’s not regarded as an occupier.”

Civilising role A deeper reason is that the EU wants to play a ‘civilising’ role on the international stage. As Dijkstra and Petrov see it, this is the unique value of the EU. Petrov: “I come from Bulgaria, which, like the Balkan countries of Macedonia and Serbia, wants to join the EU precisely because of its civilising ideas. Citizens expect integration with Europe to improve society.” In addition, global issues surrounding food and water, cybersecurity and – yes – refugees can only be tackled collectively; something that bears reemphasising in these times of anti-European sentiment. “Europe offers its member states a platform to achieve more in the world.”

Lack of political will Another shortcoming on missions is slow decision making and implementation, even when a rapid response is needed. This largely comes down to the lack of political will among member states. Dijkstra: “Instead of political will you see internal divisions, for example between ministries. Foreign Affairs thinks a mission to Ukraine is a good idea, Home Affairs dis-agrees.” The pair recommend creating a virtual pool of civilian resources, so the EU doesn’t have to constantly go knocking on the door of every member state. “A fixed unit would be able to organise funding and train and dispatch experts, making interventions faster and more professional.”

Migration crisis The present migration crisis makes the researchers’ analysis and recommendations even more pertinent. “Migration is at the top of the agenda, but it’s also difficult for the EU to explain to its partners,” Dijkstra says. “After all, its focus is on doing good: peacebuilding and conflict management. But the migration problem also involves uncontrolled borders, organised crime, chaos and terrorism. It’s a fact that the stabilisation of countries and conflict areas results in less migration.”

Will the EU actually do something with their recommen-dations? The pair are convinced that their suggestions will trickle down into official policy documents. This is what happened with their previous recommenda-tions, and this new report fits seamlessly with the EU’s recently revamped Civilian Capability Development Plan. “This plan spells out how the EU can promote peace and security from a civilian perspective,” Dijkstra explains. “Our report reflects on the issues to which the EU is urgently seeking answers. What do you do in crisis missions and how do you go about it?” <<

It may come as a surprise that a core task of the European Union is to promote peace and security in crisis areas around the world. But why does it do this, and what is it aiming to achieve? According to research by Hylke Dijkstra and Petar Petrov, the EU works closely with international organisations on crisis missions, but by no means gets everything right. “The migration crisis only makes our recommendations more pertinent.”

Four years ago, Pilar Martinez began studying the role of lipids – fats – in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. She quickly became convinced that lipids play an important role in the development of this brain disease. To keep pursuing this line of research, more funding is urgently needed.

This autumn Martinez, originally from Spain, will give her inaugural lecture as a Maastricht University professor. It’s a milestone in her career, but she has other things on her mind. “I’m a bit worried,” she says in her office on the Universiteitssingel. “In 2014 we received a grant of €1.4 million from ZonMW for our research on the influence of lipids on the onset of Alzheimer’s. Enough for four years. Slowly but steadily we’re starting to believe that a fundamentally new understanding of the role of lipids is at our fingertips. We know where to look, we feel like we can now delve beneath the tip of the iceberg to gain insight into the development of degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis. And yet it’s entirely up in the air whether we’ll have the money to continue with a new project. So I’ll be honest: we need financial support.”

Key Research funds are scarce and the competition is fierce; on average, only one in five grant applications is successful. “A lot of research is being done on brain diseases, but the translation of results into new medications has been disappointing. Large pharma-ceutical companies have stopped looking for new drugs for Alzheimer’s. In Maastricht, we were one of the first universities to start studying lipids: fats that are present in every cell of the human body, especially in brain cells. American scientists have discovered an abnormality in a certain class of lipids, called sphingolipids, in female Alzheimer’s patients. We’re not currently looking at the causes, but investigating whether drugs can alter the composition of these lipids. If so, we may hold the key to a new treatment principle.”

Text Jos Cortenraad Photography Rafaël Philippen

Beginning Martinez is frank about it: there’s still a long way to go. “We’re only at the beginning. We’re studying in vitro, in labs, and experimenting on mice. These processes are very complex and complicated. There are so many different lipids and every one of them affects the cell membrane. But we do know that manipulating these lipids changes the cells. It may even heal cells that are sick or dying, as is the case in Alzheimer’s. We also see an effect on inflammation, and therefore on the onset of cancer and vascular disease. We need to keep pursuing this.”

EURLIPIDS Martinez’s plea finds strong support in academic circles – especially at EURLIPIDS, a virtual platform for collaboration between UM, the University of Liège, KU Leuven, RWTH Aachen University, the University of Hasselt, the Maastricht Multimodal Molecular Imaging Institute (M4I) and DSM. Established with the support of Interreg Europe, the platform focuses exclusively on lipids. “It’s unique”, says Martinez, who was involved in establishing EURLIPIDS on behalf of the Maastricht University Medical Centre+ and now provides input through her own research. “There’s so much expertise and equipment within a 40 kilometre radius. Each of the universities involved has its own specialty and research equipment. By combining these, researchers gain access to all kinds of technology. This is important because lipids can be studied in different ways.”

Spectrometry One of those ways is mass spectrometry. “Here in Maastricht we use the latest scanners and imaging techniques to map changes in lipids, right down to the molecular level. We can see the effects of substances, which brings us closer to a full understanding of these lipids. This is ideal for my research because we want to know what lipids do in cells. I’m a biologist, though, not a technician. Fortunately, these disciplines come together in EURLIPIDS.”

Crucial Just before the summer, a technical partner of EURLIPIDS published an article in the journal Nature Methods on one of their first successes: a tool that can be used to quickly determine the stage and severity of a disease such as Alzheimer’s or MS based on lipid levels. “A great result, and a tool we’ll be using too,” says Martinez. “It’s made it even clearer that lipids are crucial to the health of cells in the human body. To be continued – that much is certain.” <<

Pilar Martinez (1972), a molecular biologist, received her PhD degree cum laude from the University of Valencia. She has worked at the Maastricht UMC+ since 2002 as a researcher, assistant professor and, since October 2017, professor. In 2016 she was the first UM researcher to receive a grant from the Canadian Weston Brain Institute for her research on Alzheimer’s disease.

/ Relationship between lipids and Alzheimer’s /

Euregion



Off the job

/ The story behind the beads /Text Femke Kools Photography Sacha Ruland

Applying for a job across the border can be difficult, as diplomas are not always recognised abroad. To address this obstacle, the Province of Limburg developed the project ‘Increasing transparency in the recognition of diplomas for in-demand professions’. Maastricht University’s Institute for Transna-tional and Euregional cross-border coopera-tion and Mobility (ITEM) has been invited to join the project team.

Almost a third of Europe’s population lives in a border region. The people of such regions are discouraged from applying for jobs in neighbouring countries by the fact that professional qualifications are not mutually

recognised. To streamline legislation and simplify diploma recognition, which is currently done by many different organisa-tions, in early 2018 the European Union launched a call for pilot projects. The Province of Limburg’s project is one of the 20 projects selected to share in the €400,000 budget for this initiative. The project also involves the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS), the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK), the Euregions and partners from Lower Saxony, North Rhine- Westphalia, Flanders and the Benelux. As lead partner, the Province of Limburg was awarded € 20,000 to launch the project. <<

ITEM studies diploma recognition in border regions

July. This committee was installed in consul- tation with the University Council, the Board of Deans and the other two Executive Board members.

“Martin Paul, an open communicator with an international academic background as well as extensive scientific and managerial experience, is well-suited to Maastricht University’s current profile,” says Annelies van der Pauw, chair of the Supervisory Board. “He is also a true team player who, together with his colleagues on the Executive Board, provides positive leadership for the university.”

“I am very honoured to have the opportunity to continue serving on the UM Executive Board and am looking forward to maintai-ning and expanding interactions with my colleagues, the university community and our external partners,” Paul said. <<

The Supervisory Board of Maastricht University decided to reappoint Prof. dr. Martin Paul as president of the university for a term of four years as of 1 May 2019. The decision was based on the positive advice of the Appointment Advisory Committee (BAC) in

Prof. dr. Martin Paul reappointed as president of Maastricht University

Evolutionary game theory can be used to improve treatment outcomes for patients with metastatic cancer, according to a new study in the latest issue of JAMA Oncology. The research, conducted by Katerina Stanková, mathematician at the Department of Data Science and Knowledge Engineering at Maastricht University and Joel S Brown (evolutionary biologist), William Dalton and Robert A. Gatenby (clinical physicians) from the Moffitt Cancer Center (Tampa, USA), views cancer treatment as a game between the physician and the cancer cells. The doctor “plays” the game by administering treat-ment, while the cancer cells “play” by evolving new properties that allow them to resist the toxicity of the drugs administered. This analysis challenges the decades-old standard of treatment for metastatic cancers in which drugs are typically administered continuously at the maximum-tolerated dose (MTD). The team concluded that doctors can instead exploit their under-standing of evolution and their role as the ‘leader’ in the game to administer treatment more strategically to delay or prevent the cancer cells from developing resistance, ultimately improving patient outcomes. <<

Improving treatment outcomes for cancer patients through evolutio-nary game theory

News

Professor of Functional Genetics Edwin Mariman

32UMagazine / June 2018

33June 2018 / UMagazine

Special find Over the past quarter of a century, Mariman has assembled one of the most complete and perhaps the best-documented collection of prayer beads in the world. He is regularly approached to date or identify beads, and scours the internet every week for those rare few beads he hasn’t found yet. “Twenty years ago I read about the Chaplet of the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It was used by the Order of the Holy Trinity, which collected money to buy back Christian captives from the Moors until the 18th century. The chaplet has nine instead of ten small beads separating the large beads. I’d never come across one until a few weeks ago, when I found a Spanish website selling two of them. That was a very special find.”

Preserving cultural history Other beads, too, hold fascinating stories he wants to preserve. Back in 2000 he wrote a book in Dutch on his collection at the time. Now he is working on what is intended to become the seminal English-language work on Catholic rosaries online, including almost a hundred articles on beads Mariman previously wrote for the journal Devotionalia. “I take an academic approach to cultural-historical research. My work is well substantiated and if I have a hypothesis, I present it as such. I’ll be satisfied once all my knowledge is on the internet, but that’ll take another five to seven years.” And that depends on how many new finds he makes in the meantime: “I keep thinking I’ve got them all, and then I come across something new.” He is careful about his purchases. “I stick to my budget, know exactly what something is worth and can tell if it’s incomplete.”

Industrial revolution Prayer beads were originally used to earn indulgences or obtain favours. “There are specific beads to pray for souls in purgatory so they can reach heaven more quickly. Or beads to fend off evil spirits.” There’s the Altenberg Chaplet, used by the Boy Scout movement that was banned when the Hitler Youth gained ground in Germany, but which experienced a resurgence after the war. A chaplet (or crown) differs from a rosary in that it contains 50 small beads, whereas rosaries have 150 small beads – 150 Hail Marys. The Stanhope rosary, for example, is named for the 19th century artist who adorned all sorts of souvenirs and rosaries with tiny lenses with minuscule images behind them. “It’s the industrial revolution captured in a rosary,” Mariman says, holding the cross up to the light.

Papal blessing He recounts the story of a woman who, circa 1860, wanted to encourage people to pray the Stations of the Cross. She designed a chaplet for this purpose. As it had to be officially recognised by the Pope, she took the chaplet to a religious order. “But the Pope didn’t

give his blessing to the Chaplet of the Stations of the Cross until 1906, and withdrew it again in 1912. I can only guess why: I think the Franciscans were not amused. They’re a powerful order within the Catholic Church devoted to the Stations of the Cross, and I imagine they didn’t appreciate some woman approaching the Pope through a different order.”

At the pearly gates Mariman’s collection has become an important part of his life alongside his research in functional genetics. He may be a lapsed Catholic, but he uses a Christian metaphor: “When I arrive at the pearly gates and Saint Peter asks me what I’ve achieved in life, having worked in a lab won’t suffice. Life should be about more than that.” <<

He still remembers the moment, 25 years ago, when he saw a string of prayer beads at a market stall in Nijmegen. The vendor thought they were Muslim, because they looked so different from Catholic rosaries. Mariman bought the beads and discovered that they were Catholic after all. “That’s how I learnt how much variation there can be.” He already had a keen interest in religious prints, medals and prayer books. “But around that time, I made a conscious decision to focus on beads. They represent ancient traditions that say something about society in different historical periods, but there’s also a practical motivation: they don’t take up much space, so if we ever move to a smaller house I can keep on collecting.” It’s a lesson he learnt from his parents, who deeply regretted having to part with many of their collections in old age.

Edwin Mariman (1955) is professor of Functional Genetics at Maastricht University. His research into the yo-yo effect after weight loss, which showed that fat cells that shrink prepare rapidly to re-accumulate fat, received much media attention. His book in pro- gress on his collection of rosaries can be accessed at www.rosaryhistory.com

His childhood home in Clinge, on the Dutch-Belgian border, was chock full of dolls, porcelain and other collector’s items. Clearly, Edwin Mariman, profes-sor of Functional Genetics at Maastricht University, inherited his parents’ instinct for collecting things. Less certain is whether their Catholic faith influenced the object of his interest: Mariman is now the proud owner of one of the world’s most complete collections of Catholic prayer beads. “I have around a thousand of them. I want to preserve the use, symbolism and stories behind these beads. So much has already been lost.”

I take an academic approach to cultural-

historical research.



Certain lectures are etched in his memory. “In a class on international law, we came up with a new solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis by combining the perspectives of students of different nationalities.” This is a quality that Van Rossum thinks distinguishes UM students from others. “They find it easy to work together and are happy to share their knowledge in groups, which isn’t typically Dutch.”

His decision to enrol in European Law School at UM was a spontaneous one, after having a change of heart one year into Accountancy at Nyenrode Business Uni-versity. That was “too many numbers”, he says. “What drew me to this programme was its international character and different language of instruction. I’m very much a humanities person and I love language.” In Maastricht, the seeds were planted for what he now refers to as his crusade: teaching people how to negotiate differently and more effectively.

Supermarket Most memorable was the year he served as presi-dent of the student association Circumflex. “You were responsible for many things at a very young age, from tap hygiene to clubhouse security. Our clubhouse at the time was an ordinary terraced house – a danger-ous situation that led to an all-consuming search for new accommodation.” He also remembers the sense of community. “I’d always bump into someone I knew at the supermarket and spend hours chatting with them. We once suggested to Albert Heijn that they put a bar in there.”

Van Rossum intended to become a public prosecutor, but during his studies he discovered international diplomacy. “The things that drew me to UM – its internationalism and the cooperation in tutorial groups – are the same elements you find in the world of diplomacy.” Thanks in part to Rens Knegt, then a member of the Executive Board, he secured an intern-ship at the Dutch embassy in Washington, D.C. Later he was posted to Brussels, Afghanistan and Oranjestad. “A group of us UM alumni actually set up the Alumni Circle Aruba.” He encourages everyone to donate to the Limburg University Fund (SWOL). “I benefited greatly from it. You got a real push from UM and often additional support as well, which was rarely the case for students elsewhere.”

Harvard method While in Washington, Van Rossum decided to pursue his passion for negotiation, attending training courses at Harvard. He now gives courses himself with a view to spreading the ‘Harvard method’ of negotia-tion. “In the Netherlands, negotiation often means ‘my gain is your loss’ and vice versa. The Harvard method focuses on increasing the value of the object of the negotiation, thereby increasing the value to be shared. It’s also about improving the relationship between the parties involved, so you keep on seeking each other out. That way you create a win-win situation together.”

Maarten van Rossum is a diplomat and adviser to Prime Minister Mark Rutte. His time as a student at Maastricht Univer-sity prepared him well for his career and his later passion: teaching people how to negoti-ate more effectively. “You can improve the relationship by viewing the other not as an adversary but as a conversation partner, someone you’re solving a problem with.”

Three years ago, Van Rossum was invited to become an adviser to Prime Minister Mark Rutte. “The Council of Ministers is where the most pressing political themes are discussed; it’s extremely interesting.” His main task is to prepare the three deputy prime ministers for the weekly meetings of the Council. Does he give them negotiating tips as well? “What we discuss is confidential, but of course you help them find win-win solutions. Public administration is all about reconcil-ing conflicting interests, so politics involves constant negotiation.”

Invisible hand Van Rossum describes working with Rutte as ‘instructive’. “He’s energetic, inspiring, smart and quick. It’s wonderful to be able to keep up with him now and then. He has a keen eye for the human side of governance and for keeping parties together in a deci-sion-making process. He’d rather make one too many phone calls than one too few to make sure someone agrees with a decision. That prevents a lot of conflict later in the process.”

Van Rossum will soon trade in his advisory role in The Hague to become global director of public affairs at Heineken. Although he will miss politics, he doesn’t see this as a strange transition. “Diplomacy is very important for international companies. The diplomat is the invisible hand in the background, making sure everything goes smoothly and nobody drops the ball.”

Children’s book He and his colleagues at the De Witt Institute for Advanced Negotiations in The Hague will continue to help people negotiate more effectively. Van Rossum recently published a book, Toponderhandelaars, in which Dutch entrepreneurs and politicians from Mark Rutte to Marjan van Loon and Leenie Kroes give top tips and golden rules for negotiation. He also has every intention of writing a children’s book. “Negotiating skills should be taught in schools, if you ask me. Nego-tiation is something you do almost every day, from the moment you’re born.” <<

Text Hans van Vinkeveen Photography Rafaël Philippen

/ Invisible hand in the background /

Maarten van Rossum (1977) studied law at Maastricht University from 1996 to 2002. He has served as a diplomat for the Netherlands in Washington, D.C., Brussels and Kunduz. He is cur-rently an adviser to Prime Minister Mark Rutte and will soon become global director of public affairs at Heineken. Van Rossum recently wrote a book, Toponderhandelaars, containing lessons in negotiation.

Maarten van Rossum and Prime Minister Mark Rutte



As a first-year student at the Academy of Music she attended a trial lecture at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences – and was sold. “It was the spiritual food I was looking for,” says soprano Bibi van den Dijck. She completed the bachelor’s in Arts and Culture in Maastricht, followed by a master’s in Media and Journalism in Rotter- dam. But music never lost its appeal. “Music makes the world a better place.”

/ Bringing more joy into the world /

Text Jolien Linssen Photography Bibi van den Dijck But surely you’re not big and fat enough? This is

the usual reaction when Van den Dijck mentions her work as an opera and concert singer. Many people are unfamiliar with the world of classical music, and that can give rise to misunderstandings. “There’s this idea that opera singers plant themselves on the stage and belt out the song, completely unintelligibly and with an extreme amount of vibrato. Whereas opera is musical theatre, just like a musical; with a director, stage decoration and a story. There are all sorts of nuances in it.”

Arts and Culture Although she has always loved music, Van den Dijck only discovered classical music later. She started violin lessons at the age of 6, played in different orchestras and sang in the children’s choir of the local church. When she was 15 she switched from the violin to singing lessons. After high school and the prepara-tory course of the Maastricht Academy of Music, she joined the jazz singing programme. One year in, she decided to combine it with the bachelor’s in Arts and Culture.

“I enjoyed that so much that I eventually opted for Arts and Culture. Combining the two programmes was difficult; I had no time left over for student life. And easy-listening music wasn’t really my thing, while I

found Arts and Culture fascinating. It was a small, companionable faculty where everybody knew one another.” She joined the student drama club Alles is Drama and the university choir, where she sang classical works for the first time. “So I didn’t miss singing. That didn’t happen until later, when I started working as a communications officer after my master’s.”

Academy of Music And so she reversed course, auditioning again for the music academy: this time classical singing in Rotterdam. It turned out to be the right move: since 2012 she has worked as a freelance opera and concert singer, including in the choir of the Dutch Touring Opera. “Singing and making music is a great way for me to express myself. And at the same time, it’s all about joy and harmony. There’s more than enough fear and insecurity in the world. That’s why I want to do this, even if it’s hard work and you earn less than someone with a permanent job.”

Opera for everyone Solo roles in opera are scarce and professional choirs in the Netherlands have faced cutbacks in recent years. As a young singer, it can be difficult to gain experience. But Van den Dijck is not the type to sit around waiting for it. Together with two fellow singers she founded her own troupe, B.O.O.M! Bold Opera On the Move. “Our goal is to introduce more people to opera. We shorten existing operas and perform them in people’s living rooms, at festivals and in schools. The great thing is, whether they’re teenagers or older people, once they’ve seen it up close everyone’s enthusiastic.”

Van den Dijck is also one of the ‘divas’ in Diva Dichtbij. This foundation organises performances for people who can no longer go to the theatre themselves, such

as Alzheimer’s or psychiatric patients. “We have a varied repertoire, from light classical to Dutch songs. You have these people right in front of your nose, and for some of them, making contact no longer seems to be an option. But then suddenly they start to sing along, or you see a tear running down their cheek. That’s very special; you can really mean something.”

Benefits Looking back on the route she has travelled, would she have wanted to do things differently? “Given who I was then, it’s perfectly fine that things went the way they went,” she says. “You make choices based on what you know at that point in time. I really benefit from my academic training, when writing texts for my website, for example, or writing grant applications. And my background as a cultural scientist makes it easy for me to contextualise the music. I know what was going on in society at that time, which philosophers were around. It gives you a broader framework.”<<

Visit us at www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/alumni

I really benefit

from my academic training.

Bibi van den Dijck (1984) studied jazz singing at the Maastricht Academy of Music and Arts and Culture at Maas-tricht University. Following her master’s in Media and Journalism at Erasmus University Rotterdam, she worked briefly as a government communications officer before returning to study classical singing at the Rotterdam Conservatory. Van den Dijck now works as a freelance opera and concert singer. She is a co-founder of the opera collective B.O.O.M! Bold Opera On the Move and active in the Diva Dichtbij foundation. For more information, see www.bibivandendijck.com

Der fliegende Holländer / Die Zauberflöte / Die Zauberflöte






Donating money for research is becoming increasingly important and, fortunately, more common. At the University Fund it fills us with pride that a growing number of alumni, companies and philanthropists are giving back to Maastricht University. Becoming a donor, sponsoring a research chair or lending your name to lecture hall; these are all ways for people and companies to support science, development and innovation.

This year’s annual campaign focuses on a healthy future for the generations to come. UM conducts research on pre- eclampsia, children’s rights, plastic waste and many other pivotal issues that will benefit our children, their children and children living in developing countries. Your contribution is key. Donate online now at www.ufl-swol.nl or transfer the amount of your choice to Foundation University Fund Limburg, IBAN NL21 INGB 0653 6632 42.<<

Have you ever thought about who will inherit your property, paintings or that special book collection you own? Perhaps you have a particular passion, or have experienced a life-changing event that makes you consider what you could contribute to science and research. Including our foundation in your will also has certain tax advantages. In the past six months alone, Maastricht University has been the fortunate beneficiary of two wills. In both bequests, the deceased specifically allocated certain amount of their assets to the university, for which we are deeply grateful. What to do with something as important as your legacy is not a decision to be taken lightly. If you are considering making Maastricht University (one of) your beneficiaries, please get in touch with the University Fund Limburg. We will gladly discuss your preferences and options.<<

Will you join us?Mark it in your diary: the special anniversary edition of the UM Star Lectures will be held on Thursday 7 February 2019, exactly five years after the very first UM Star Lectures.

In previous years we welcomed thousands of alumni to this event. For many, it has already become a tradition to gather on this day and reconnect with one another as well as their university.

For the special anniversary edition, the number of participating cities will increase to 14 locations – including Paris this time – in 5 different countries. A select group of professors will visit the following cities in person: Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Breda, Eindhoven, Maastricht, Brussels, London, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich and Paris.

Throughout the year, the university offers its alumni a wide range of lectures, workshops and gatherings. The UM Star Lectures are intended as a way of bringing the university to them in an informal setting.<<

The logos of partners of the University Fund Limburg/SWOL are shown below. These respected companies and funds are important supporters of research and education. The University Fund Limburg is grateful to its partners for their commitment to Maastricht University.

A healthy future for generations to come

Make our knowledge your heritage

UM Star Lectures 7 February 2019 – Anniversary Edition

“I want to get across just how socially engaged UM really is”

Janssen-Kuijpers sees herself as a connector. Someone who loves networking. Who enjoys having her finger in many pies and is not afraid to step outside her comfort zone. She spends her free time on adventure travel, motorcycling, diving in tropical warm water. “I don’t like sitting still,” she says. “I want to see things, experience things.”

Fulfilling a mission As director of the University Fund, her first plan is to identify research that makes a significant contribution to social interests in the region, yet may not be possible without financial support from citizens and the business community. “Research like that deserves recognition and additional exposure.” That said, in her first few weeks on the job she has come across what she calls “funds very concretely on the hunt for a good cause”. “People want to fulfil a mission through their donations.” Bringing these parties together is a nice challenge for Janssen and her team. “And I want to highlight the tax benefits enjoyed by donors to the fund, which dates all the way back to

Bouwien Janssen-Kuijpers (1970) was born and raised in Landgraaf. She studied Business Economics at Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, then joined Rabobank in Roermond as a management trainee in 1993. After working for several years as a finance specialist and account manager, she completed her MBA at UM in 2005. Thereafter she held various manage-ment positions at local Rabobank branches, most recently in northeast Brabant. She has been director of Development and Alumni Relations and director of the Limburg University Fund at UM since 2 July 2018.

the establishment of the university in 1976.” She is also interested in relatively new, alternative ways of funding innovative research, such as crowdfunding.

Space and freedom With the advance of digitisation and increase in upscaling, after nearly 25 years at Rabobank the Limburg native made the switch to the world of education and science. “I was keen to work in a sector other than banking. I wanted to be close to the market again, as I am here. I need space and freedom to shape my ideas. I’ve always drawn a lot of energy and inspiration from facilitating social initiatives. I really identify with Maastricht University’s strategic ambition to be rooted in society. As director of Development and Alumni Relations, I want to help to keep alumni interested and involved in developments at the university. Our network currently has more than 69,000 alumni – that too is something to be proud of. We need to keep them connected to UM. Invite them to guest lectures, have them coach students and interest them in digital communities. We can make use of alumni in so many ways, and they in turn can recruit students to the companies they work for. A win-win situation, in other words.”

All this will keep her busy in the coming years, shuttling between UM as a knowledge institute, the business community, govern-ment and alumni. Connecting people, with a view to raising funds for education and research and creating an effective, two-way partnership with our international alumni network.<<

In her very first week as director of the Limburg University Fund and director of Development and Alumni Relations at UM, so many great and challenging things crossed Bouwien Janssen-Kuijpers’s desk that she knew immediately she was in the right place. “I see so much to be proud of here. As a university we’re often much too modest, unjustifiably so. We could do with showing off a bit more about our knowledge, expertise and social engagement.”

Text Graziella Runchina Photography Sacha Ruland

ProfileEducation and research at Maastricht University is organised primarily on the basis of faculties, schools and institutes.

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences• Politics and Culture in Europe• Science, Technology and Society• Arts, Media and Culture• Globalisation, Transnationalism and Development

Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences• School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism (NUTRIM)• School for Cardiovascular Diseases (CARIM)• School for Public Health and Primary Care (CAPHRI)• School for Mental Health and Neuroscience (MHeNS)• School for Oncology and Developmental Biology (GROW)• School of Health Professions Education (SHE)• Institute for Education

Faculty of Science and Engineering• University College Maastricht (UCM)• University College Venlo (UCV)• Maastricht Science Programme (MSP)• Department of Data Science and Knowledge Engineering (DKE) • Department of Biobased Materials (BBM)• Aachen-Maastricht Institute for Biobased Materials (AMIBM)• International Centre for Integrated assess- ment and Sustainable development (ICIS)• Maastricht Graduate School of Governance (MGSoG)• Top Institute for Evidence based education Research (TIER)

Faculty of Law• Institute for Globalisation and International Regulation (IGIR)• Institute for Transnational Legal Research (METRO)• Institute for Corporate Law, Governance and Innovation Policies (ICGI)• Maastricht Centre for European Law (MCEL)• Maastricht Centre for Human Rights• Maastricht Centre for Taxation (MCT)• Maastricht European Private Law Institute (MEPLI)• Maastricht Graduate School of Law• Montesquieu Institute Maastricht

Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience• Graduate School of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience• Clinical Psychological Science• Cognitive Neuroscience (CN)• Experimental Psychopathology (EPP)• Neuropsychology & Psychopharmacology• Work & Social Psychology• Maastricht Brain Imaging Centre (M-BIC)

School of Business and Economics• Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE)• Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA)• Network Social Innovation (NSI)• Limburg Institute of Financial Economics (LIFE)• The Maastricht Academic Centre for Research in Services (MAXX)• Accounting, Auditing & Information Management Research Centre (MARC)• European Centre for Corporate Engagement (ECCE)• United Nations University – Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT)• Social Innovation for Competitiveness, Organisational Performance and human Excellence (NSCOPE)• Marketing-Finance Research Lab

Interfaculty institutes• The Maastricht Forensic Institute (tMFI)• MERLN Institute for Technology-Inspired Regenerative Medicine • The Maastricht Centre for Citizenship, Migration and Development (MACIMIDE) • Maastricht MultiModal Molecular Imaging Institute (M4I) • Maastricht Centre for Systems Biology (MaCSBio)• Maastricht Centre for Arts and Culture, Conservation and Heritage (MACCH) • Centre for European Research in Maastricht (CERIM) • Institute for Transnational and Euregional cross border cooperation and Mobility (ITEM)• Institute for Data Science (DTS@UM)

ColophonPublisher © Maastricht University

Chief Editor Annelotte Huiskes

Editorial Board Rianne Letschert (President), Denis Ancion, Teun Dekker, Manon van Engeland, Lisa Brüggen, Mirjam Oude Egbrink, Alexander Sack, Hildegard Schneider, Jo Wachelder.

Texts Jos Cortenraad, Annelotte Huiskes, Femke Kools, Jolien Linssen, Graziella Runchina, Florian Raith, Karen Shook, Hans van Vinkeveen.

Photography and IllustrationLoraine Bodewes, Bibi van den Dijck, Philip Driessen, Harry Heuts, Rafaël Philippen, Sacha Ruland, Arjen Schmitz, Ted Struwer, Hugo Thomassen, Paul van der Veer.

Translations and English editing Alison Edwards

Graphic concept and Design Zuiderlicht Maastricht

Print Drukkerij Tuijtel, Hardinxveld-Giessendam

Maastricht University magazine is published in February, June and October. It is sent on demand to UM alumni and to external relations.

Editorial OfficeMarketing & CommunicationsPostbus 616, 6200 MD MaastrichtT +31 43 388 5238 / +31 43 388 5222E [email protected] ISSN 2210-5212

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needs in the municipalities. With targeted activities, we try to prevent seniors with dementia or late-life depression from essen-tially wasting away.” The project began in September 2016 and will last three years.

Around 8% of people over the age of 65 in the Meuse-Rhine Euregion suffer from dementia, and some 25% of people over 50 experience symptoms of depression. Due to the ageing of the population, these numbers will only increase in the coming years. This project is supported by the Interreg V-A pro-gramme for the Meuse-Rhine Euregion. <<

The World Health Organization (WHO) is so impressed by ‘Senior-friendly communi-ties’ that it has designated this cross-border project for seniors in the Meuse-Rhine Eure-gion as an example for Europe. The project brings together 9 Euregional partners and 31 municipalities to create a senior-friendly environment. The aim is to enable seniors with dementia and late-life depression to continue to participate in society for as long as possible. Unique to the project is the cross-border sharing of practical activities in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. Instead of reinventing the wheel themselves, the neighbouring countries are capitalising on one another’s knowledge and experience.

“We consider this recognition a special milestone,” says lead partner Professor Frans Verhey of Maastricht University. “We’re working on creating sustainable change in the Meuse-Rhine Euregion based on the local

WHO designates Senior-friendly communities as best practice

The job prospects of graduates and jobseekers in Limburg between now and 2022 are better than the national average. Frank Cörvers, researcher at the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA) and professor of Demographic Transition, Human Capital and Employment at Maastricht Uni-versity, studied employment prospects as part of the 4Limburg programme. “This improved outlook is due in part to the fact that relative-ly few young people are entering the labour market in Limburg.”

Highly educated graduates in Limburg have better job prospects than those in the rest of the country due to vacancies created by the retirement of many skilled workers.

In particular, graduates and jobseekers with a background in medicine or healthcare at the higher vocational or university level have good job prospects due to a high demand for replacements and a low influx of graduates on the labour market. Technical graduates trained at the secondary vocational level, higher vocational level or university level have good to very good job prospects between now and 2022.

The demand for workers is expected to slight-ly exceed supply across all education levels in North Limburg, Central Limburg and South Limburg over the next six years. The labour shortage is expected to be highest in Central Limburg.<<

Good prospects for graduates and jobseekers in Limburg

Maastricht University’s team won the Nuremberg Moot Court on International Criminal Law, held in late July. Teams from 45 different countries competed against each other, representing the prosecution or defence in a fictitious case. The competition was largely held in Courtroom 600 of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, where the most notorious German war criminals were judged at the Nuremberg Trials some 70 years ago.

Maastricht’s team consisted of master’s students Kimberley Mills, Anna Lena Neidmann and Marie Vesayt, as well as bachelor’s student Victoria Haeberle. After some ups and downs during the preliminary rounds, beating a Russian team but losing to an Iranian team, they advanced through the knockout rounds against teams from Germany, Brazil and Singapore to face Ukraine in the final.

This is the second time UM has won the Nuremberg Moot Court on International Criminal Law, having taken the prize in 2015 too. Maastricht’s Anna Lena Neidmann won second prize for the best speaker overall.<<

Maastricht wins Nuremburg Moot Court on Inter- national Criminal Law 2018

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