magazine 02/June 2012
Based in Europe, focused on the world. Maastricht University is a stimulating environment. Where research and teaching are complementary. Where innovation is our focus. Where talent can flourish. A truly student oriented research university.
www.maastrichtuniversity.nl
About education and research at Maastricht University
“I’m not attached
to power” Farewell interview with rector magnificus Gerard Mols - p 8
The first in-vitro
hamburger Mark Post on the need for meat - p 6
Sjaak Koenis and Lies Wesseling
debate on anger, emancipation and the PVV - p 20
Content
Further 04 Leading in Learning - Neuroeconomics: Paving the way for interdisciplinary research programmes 06 The first in-vitro hamburger - Mark Post: The need for meat
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Corine de Ruiter
Robert M. was arrested in Amsterdam as a suspect in what has become the biggest case of child sex abuse in our country. Serious crimes like these shock the public and call for an explanation. At Maastricht University, professor of Forensic Psychology Corine de Ruiter is looking for that explanation.
08 Farewell interview - Gerard Mols: “I’m not attached to power” 14 Professor–Student - Louis Berkvens and Hans van Hall: Eijsden in the Late Middle Ages 18 International - Geraldine van Kasteren: Maastricht University can make a difference in Yemen 20 Debate - Sjaak Koenis and Lies Wesseling: Debate on anger, emancipation and the PVV 24 European Eye Centre - Fred Hendrikse: From jungle outpost to top clinical eye care 26 Off the job - Angelique Hollands: “When I play, I forget everything else” 28 Research in Limburg - Leonie Cornips: A plea for multilingualism
32 Alumnus Louis Delahaije
Louis Delahaije went from being an athlete who did some research to a researcher of athletes. He studied Human Movement Sciences, where he could experiment to his heart’s content, coached the national triathlon team, and is now a trainer-coach for the Rabobank cycling team.
30 PhD research - Cecile aan de Stegge: A history of the Dutch psychiatric nursing tradition 34 Alumni - Bert Fastré: “Maastricht has great extras” 36 University Fund - Brains Unlimited grant - Maastricht University Dinner 2012 - Academy meets Friends News 11, 16, 17, 23 and 38
Profile Education 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, incl. Globalisation and Development • Arts, Media and Culture Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences • School for Nutrition, Toxicology and 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) Faculty of Humanities and Sciences • Department of Knowledge Engineering • International Centre for Integrated assessment and Sustainable development (ICIS) • Maastricht Graduate School of Governance (MGSoG) • University College Maastricht • Teachers Academy • Maastricht Science College 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)
Colophon • Maastricht European Private Law Institute (MEPLI) • The Maastricht Forensic Institute (tMFI)
Publisher: © Maastricht University Editor-in-Chief: Jeanine Gregersen General Editor: Annelotte Huiskes Editorial Board: Gerard Mols (President),
• Maastricht Graduate School of Law
Marja van Dieijen-Visser, Arvid Hoffmann,
• Montesquieu Institute Maastricht
Jos Kievits, Victor Mostart, Madelon Peters,
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)
Hildegard Schneider, Annemie Schols, Sophie Vanhoonacker. Texts: Jos Cortenraad, Annelotte Huiskes, Margot Krijnen, Jos Kievits, Loek Kusiak, Jolien Linssen, Hanna McLean, Graziella Runchina, Hans van Vinkeveen. Photography: Peter van Beek (p 38), Bert Fastré (p 36,37), Collectie Dimence, locatie Brinkgreven (p 30), Guy van Grinsven (p 24,25), Harry Heuts (p 16), Istockphoto (p 16,17,20,23), Foto Kaldenbach Simpelveld.Bouwens-Meurers v.o.f. (p 27), Herman van Ommen (p 36), Sacha Ruland (Cover, p 4,6,8,10, 12,14,28,31), Cor Vos (p 32, 33), Jonathan Vos (p 9,16),
School of Business and Economics
Moniek Wegdam (p 21,22), Pepijn Zoon (p 26)
• Maastricht Research School of
Translations and English editing:
Economics of Technology and
Alison Edwards
Organisations (METEOR)
Graphic concept:
• Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA), Foundation • United Nations University –
Vormgeversassociatie BV, Hoog-Keppel Graphic design: Grafisch Ontwerpbureau Emilio Perez, Geleen
Maastricht Economic Research Insti-
Print:
tute on Innovation and Technology
Pietermans Drukkerij, Lanaken (B)
(UNU-MERIT), Foundation • Limburg Institute of Financial Economics (LIFE) • The Maastricht Academic Centre for
Maastricht University magazine is published in February, June and October. It is sent on demand to UM alumni and to external relations.
Research in Services (MAXX) • Accounting, Auditing & Information Management Research Centre (MARC) • European Centre for Corporate Engagement (ECCE) • Social Innovation for Competitiveness,
Editorial Office: Marketing & Communications Postbus 616, 6200 MD Maastricht T +31 43 388 5238 / +31 43 388 5222 E annelotte.huiskes@maastrichtuniversity.nl webmagazine.maastrichtuniversity.nl
Organisational Performance and human
Cover: Rector Magnificus Gerard Mols With thanks to Jean-Pierre Pilet
• Maastricht Centre for European Law (MCEL)
ISSN: 2210-5212
• Maastricht Centre for Human Rights • Maastricht Centre for Taxation (MCT)
webmagazine.maastrichtuniversity.nl
Goodbye On 1 September, my term as Rector Magnificus at Maastricht University will come to an end. I have had the pleasure of holding this position for no less than eight years and eight months. During this time we also decided to launch the Maastricht University Magazine, another issue of which you are now reading. The aim of this magazine is to inform the outside world of the developments within the university in the fields of education, research and valorisation. It seeks to shed light on the great diversity of activities within our university in a way that both inspires and appeals to many readers within the Netherlands and abroad. We have taken as our starting point the ‘personalisation’ of science. With this we acknowledge that the academic community is a community of people.
I am particularly grateful that I have been able to work for so long with so many dedicated people. This holds also for the editors of this magazine. They have always critically evaluated the ideas of Annelotte Huiskes and colleagues in a positive light, and Annelotte continually brings them to outstanding fruition. I wish you all the best, and hope that you, too, form a lasting bond with Maastricht University.
Professor Gerard Mols, Rector Magnificus, Maastricht University
The university exists by virtue of people who put their heart and soul into the cause of excellent education, high-quality research and valorisation wherever needed and appropriate. Maastricht University is proud of its employees. It is thanks to them that we can offer our students the very best; we can help their talents flourish and help to make this world a better place.
Gerard Mols
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Leading in Learning
Theresa Schuhmann and Arno Riedl
Neuroeconomics: Paving the
way for interdisciplinary research programmes in the social sciences By Hanna Mclean
The Neuroeconomics programme at Maastricht University is about to make a big impression. A specialisation within the Research Master in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, it boasts a challenging curriculum combined with an interdisciplinary approach, and it intends to live up to the high expectations. Course coordinators Arno Riedl and Teresa Schuhmann aim to help future graduates get into top universities, such as MIT and NYU. 4
“The Neuroeconomics specialisation brings the brain to economics and economics to the brain”, explains Riedl. Traditionally, economics is only interested in behaviour, or the way that people act in certain situations. It pays no attention to why they might be acting in the way they are. In Riedl’s view, bringing neuroscience to economics can help to fill this gap. “If you can understand how decisions are made, taking into consideration not only the psychological processes, but the neuro-processes as well, you can build better models which can predict behaviour more accurately. This is one of the goals of this programme.” Standing out from the crowd The Neuroeconomics specialisation stands out because of its interdisciplinary nature and because few comparable programmes, if any, exist in Europe. It combines both theoretical and empirical research methods as well as techniques from neuroscience, economics and psychology into a unified approach. This helps to avoid the shortcomings that may arise from a single-perspective approach and aims at an integrated understanding of human decision making, from explaining decisions in complex social situations, like helping strangers, to the very foundations of decision making. Some might wonder, why combine everything? Why not take economics and neuroscience separately? “It has to do with languages”, says Riedl. “We have a common basis, which is our interest in scientific research. We have research questions and particular methodologies, but I speak economics, Teresa speaks neuroscience, and other people speak psychology. The key advantage of this specialisation is that
students are taught right from the outset to speak and understand all three languages at a high level. This will give them a head start in their PhD research, for example. No other research master’s specialisation that we know of does this.” The focus of the specialisation is on uncovering the neuronal basis of individual and social decision making, with a view to developing more accurate economic models. According to Riedl, “There was mounting evidence that the traditional economic models didn’t work well in predicting people’s behaviour, so something had to change. This prompted the introduction of psychology in economics, leading to behavioural economics, which called for new and improved models. Today, technological progress allows us to go a step further and look into the living brain while people are making decisions. We’re confident that this will improve our models.” Do you have what it takes? Neuroeconomics will be a selective, challenging specialisation. A maximum of 12 students out of the many expected to apply will be accepted. “We want students who are smart, ambitious and talented. They have to know what they want and should be hard workers”, says Schuhmann. “They may come from various backgrounds, because we’ve seen that if someone is interested enough, they can learn everything they need to know in the first two years. But this is not easy; the students selected will have to work hard in order to succeed.” A different way of thinking That a brand new programme already has such high standards seems to bother neither Riedl nor Schuhmann. “Content-wise, it’s experimental”,
says Riedl. “Students have to change their mindsets in this specialisation, because so many different areas of expertise are involved. But this is precisely the idea.” “One of the strengths of this specialisation is that it is comprised of small groups and students have close contact with staff. We have an opendoor policy and if something goes wrong, it can be fixed quickly”, Schuhmann adds. The Neuroeconomics research master’s specialisation, offered jointly by the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience and the School of Business and Economics, starts in September 2012.
Arno Riedl Arno Riedl (1964) works at the Department of Economics in the Maastricht University School of Business and Economics. He received his PhD in 1997 from the University of Vienna. Before joining UM, he worked as a lecturer at the University of Vienna, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna and the Center for Research in Experimental Economics and Political Decision Making (CREED) at the University of Amsterdam. Teresa Schuhmann Teresa Schuhmann (1979) works at the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, as well as the Maastricht Brain Imaging Center. She received her PhD in 2012 in cognitive neuroscience with a special focus on transcranial magnetic stimulation. She is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow and co-coordinator of the Neuroeconomics research master’s specialisation.
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The first in-vitro hamburger
The need for
meat By Margot Krijnen
This autumn, closely followed by media worldwide, professor of Vascular Physiology Mark Post will cook and serve the first ‘test-tube hamburger’, made of tiny pieces of meat produced in-vitro. Will his cutting-edge research have a drastic impact on traditional meat production? The idea is not so new, according to Post. It was around as early as the 19th century, and in 1932 Winston Churchill wrote about it in his book Thoughts and Adventures. Churchill felt it was ridiculous to kill entire animals to consume only small parts of them, and called on science to find a solution. And about eight years ago, here in the Netherlands, Willem van Eelen (now almost 90 years old) set up a research group to examine the possibilities of producing meat outside the animal. Post: “We started off with a small group of researchers from Amsterdam, Utrecht and Eindhoven. At the time, I was working one day per week in Eindhoven, and that’s how I got involved. From the beginning, I was fascinated by the concept of creating meat in a laboratory. Perhaps that’s why I was approached by the sponsor, who has been financing our project over the last year.” The sponsor, whose identity has not been revealed, contacted Post after researching similar projects all over the world, and ultimately chose to finance Post’s research. His identity will most likely remain a secret until the official presentation of the hamburger in a few months. How it’s done Whether you like the idea or not, how it is done is certainly intriguing. Where do you start? “We take stem cells from tiny pieces of muscle tissue”, explains Post. “These stem cells are just sitting there, waiting to repair the muscle when it’s damaged. The stem cells have two great advantages: they reproduce very easily
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and in tremendous quantities, and they are tissue specific, which means that they automatically differentiate into muscle tissue. The drawback is that they don’t infinitely reproduce, so you’ll always need new stemcell donors. This means that you’ll still need animals. Not nearly as many as for regular meat production, but for hard-core vegans this solution is still unacceptable.” These stem cells are subsequently placed in small breeding boxes that contain gel and anchor points, which will function as tendons. From then on, the stem cells do the work, says Post: “The cells organise the gel. It’s hard to believe, but first there’s a puddle of gel, and within 48 hours there’s a muscle between the anchor points. And they do that all by themselves. They also build tension and they contract, which is good for the strength of the muscle. After a few weeks, we can harvest the first muscle. Once you have 3000 of those, you have enough to create a hamburger. We do the same with fat tissue, and at a later stage, we mix the in-vitro meat with the in-vitro fat in specific proportions to get a juicy and tasty result.” Post and his colleagues are still working on the finer details, such as the colour of the burger. Now, the meat looks a bit pale, but they may be able to change this by having the cells produce sufficient myoglobin, the substance that colours our blood red.
Mark Post
Why it’s done Few of us realise it, but 40 years from now, meat will be an exclusive and expensive product, only available to the happy few. Meat demand will double worldwide, particularly in emerging economies, and the world population will be nine billion instead of the seven billon that it is now. “Already, 70% of the world’s farmland is used for stock breeding”, says Post. “When meat demand increases, there will be a gigantic shortage of meat. Meat producers will be tempted to use even more vegetable proteins for stock breeding, which will put yet greater pressure on the provision of world food. We’re heading for major problems in this area in the coming decades. So, if we can produce laboratory meat this way, only more efficiently and with a smaller carbon footprint, this could be a solution.” Then there’s also the environmental effect. “Stock breeding is responsible for a large percentage of greenhouse gas emissions. We’re also concerned about animal wellbeing and the spread of diseases caused by high animal concentrations in the livestock industry. To me, it’s important that people realise there will be a meat crisis. So far, meat prices have been kept artificially low. Just think: in the past ten years, the prices of cereals have exploded. Cereals make up
70% of forage. The fact that forage producers are subsidised keeps meat prices low. But trust me, that can’t go on forever. The question is not whether we should come up with alternatives for meat and stock breeding. The question is which alternatives, and how quickly we can deliver them.” Post and his group have delivered proof of concept. The next stage is to achieve efficient and costeffective production. Perhaps the official presentation this autumn will inspire a new secret sponsor...
Mark Post Mark Post (1957) has worked at the KNAW Interuniversity Institute of the Netherlands, and subsequently in the USA (Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH). He returned to the Netherlands in 2002 as professor of Vascular Physiology at Maastricht University. Since 2004, he has been head of the Physiology Department.
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Farewell interview
Gerard Mols
“I’m not attached to power” By Annelotte Huiskes
On 1 September Gerard Mols will become Maastricht University’s longest-serving rector, with a term of eight years and eight months. The usual unwritten rule is that a rector may serve a maximum of two four-year terms, but his successor Luc Soete was unavailable earlier. “After two terms you’re practically dead; you become predictable and routine. That’s not good either for yourself or for the organisation. You have to make way for new people.” Here we look back on a career that, in his own words, has always had a touch of schizophrenia. 8
Yes, one of the high points was back when Jo Ritzen called him to announce his nomination as rector. “I was really moved; I would never have thought I could come so far. Where I come from, people didn’t even know what a rector was. I was glad that someone apparently had that much faith in me.” However honoured he was by the appointment, the rectorship was not something he had consciously worked towards. This wasn’t the first time in his career that opportunities had just appeared before him. He knew early on that he wanted to study law – at least, after his first goal of studying tropical agriculture appeared a bit too ambitious for a boy who had studied arts and humanities at school. But why law, he doesn’t know for sure. “Maybe it had to do with a sense of justice; maybe it was also the people around me. Because I was always talking, they’d say: you’ve got to be a lawyer. But at the same time, I’ve always continued to serve academia. This is the schizophrenia of my career: one leg in practice and one leg in academia. Only when I became rector did I give up legal practice, because I wanted to devote myself to this task 100 percent. But I can’t rule out the idea that I’ll get back into it soon.”
Finest hour His finest hour as a lawyer was as a member of the “dream team” (with Gerard Spong and Max and Bram Moszkowicz) in the defence of Johan V, aka “the Stutterer”. “And that had
nothing to do with the media attention for the case; my team enjoyed that more than I did. No, for me it was a very interesting case because that was when the crown witness was introduced in the Netherlands.” Administration and innovation are the common threads running through his career. For instance, he initially opted for Maastricht because he would be able to establish a law faculty here with an innovative legal education. “Problem-Based Learning, of course, is well suited as a methodology to the case histories of the legal craft. I wanted to contribute to that.” Thankfully, the lawyer Mols and the administrator Mols are not split personalities. They complement each other, and have grown towards one another. “I think that as a lawyer I can see the problem in a file very quickly, and I’d have no trouble persuading you to buy a broken vacuum cleaner. I can also argue a case well, though that was something I had to learn and copy from others. As an administrator
I sometimes have to take an unpleasant standpoint that I also have to be able to defend. Only when a decision is taken within this university does the discussion start. That’s very different from the business world, where everyone has to have their noses pointing in the right direction. Just like a lawyer, an administrator has to be curious. What’s happening within and outside your organisation, how can you create opportunities for your organisation? And you have to know where the machinery is likely to get stuck, because not everyone will come and tell you; you need a sort of radar for that.” Power It wasn’t the power of this position that appealed to him. “Administration is mainly to do with having a say. Giving up power is easy; I’m not in the least attached to it. After all, what power do you really have? It’s more servitude than anything else. And I don’t do it alone. As a board we’re all jointly responsible for both the positive and the negative things. And as a university administrator you can’t do a thing if you don’t get on well with the deans. It’s a bit like driving a big tanker: if you start changing course today, it takes a while until you see any movement. That’s why I found
Cortège Opening Academic Year, 2010
9
Farewell interview
four years to be too short. You need the first four years to get used to things and to sow some seeds, and in the second four years you can slowly begin to harvest them.” During his term as rector he has been able to play a role in a number of developments. “Leading in Learning is a programme that really has my stamp on it and that I’m very happy with, because we’ve now managed to develop it university-wide. There’s broad support for it within the organisation. The programme will run for a while yet and we’ll also reap the rewards for a long time. Further, we’ve been very successful in establishing the graduate schools. The number of PhD defences is increasing and, in my view, so is the quality. And we’ve been working on the quality of not only the bachelor’s programmes but also the master’s. Successfully, so it seems from the Keuzegids 2011 and 2012 [the Dutch guide to higher education], in which we did extremely well.” In the future, he expects UM to merge into a large network of companies and knowledge institutes in Europe and beyond. “We’d still do a certain share of the teaching and research, and the rest would happen in the sister institutions. Also, UM will specialise, possibly in the life sciences, or perhaps in a combination of nutrition, economics and law. I think that we as a university have to look at the societal problems that the world faces. There are structural evils such as hunger, poverty, neglect, and perhaps also the new development of the portrayal of people. It really winds me up that a boat full of refugees comes from Libya, that Europe knows where they are, that NATO knows where they are, and yet they just let them drown. It’s unbelievable. We in
academia have to offer some form of counterbalance. There’s a real shortage of global civilisation.” Grateful What he will miss is the inspiring contact with the deans and with young researchers and students. What he definitely won’t miss are the after-hours social obligations or the sometimes quite useless meetings where his presence is required. “But overall, it was a fantastic time. I’ve been able to travel abroad a lot and meet all sorts of dignitaries. I’ve had discussions with ministers and even got the chance to sit down with Her Majesty the Queen a few times. I’ve met talented students and much more. For all of this, I’m grateful.” The first thing he will do from 1 September is take a sabbatical in Indonesia. There he will teach at the University of Yogyakarta, which he is particularly looking forward to. The love of the tropics is still there. And if he has learned one thing from his many trips abroad, it is that capacity building makes sense. Afterwards, he will take up his new role as scientific director of the Forensic Institute in Maastricht. “With a great deal of pleasure and dedication, to be sure, but it’s not a full-time job. What I’ll do on top of that is still up in the air. I might head back to legal practice or become a rector in a tropical country, or I’ll write a book. In any event, it won’t be politics. So many games are played there, it’s a waste of my time.” No doubt something will come up, just as it always has in his career. In the meantime, Gerard Mols waits patiently, a happy man.
Gerard Mols Gerard Mols (1951) studied law in Utrecht, obtaining his PhD in 1982 with his dissertation ‘Strafbare samenspanning. Een rechtshistorisch en rechtsvergelijkend onderzoek’ (‘Punishable conspiracy: A historical and comparative review of law’). In 1988 he was appointed professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, and between 1992 and 2003 he served as dean of the Maastricht law faculty. His term as Maastricht University rector, which began in 2004, will end as of 1 September 2012.
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From left to right: Rainer Goebel (UM), Paul Knibbeler (UM), Bernadette Jansma (UM), Ross
Signing of research contract marks new step for Brains Unlimited Maastricht University and Siemens have signed the Master Research Agreement, thereby confirming their participation in the prestigious Brains Unlimited research project. This project strives to conduct high-quality scientific research
McLennan (Brains Unlimited BV), Kees Smaling (Siemens) and Sjaak van der Touw (Siemens)
on human behaviour and common brain diseases using three fMRI scanners provided by Siemens Healthcare Nederland. One of these scanners has an ultra-high magnetic field of 9.4 Tesla. Siemens is the only manufacturer
capable of delivering such a powerful scanner, one of only three of its kind worldwide. The underlying MRI technology is constantly evolving and is based on research that will be partially conducted in Maastricht.
Traumatic childhood experiences raise the risk of schizophrenia If you were traumatised during childhood, you run a higher risk of developing a mental disorder and schizophrenia. This is the conclusion of a recent study by an international group of researchers from the Netherlands (Maastricht University), Great Britain (universities of Liverpool and Manchester) and New Zealand (University of Auckland). Further, schizo-
phrenia is not a genetic disorder, the researchers say, but caused by a combination of hereditary and environmental factors. The influence of childhood trauma has been a topic of discussion within psychiatric medicine for decades. To get to the bottom of the matter, the researchers re-scrutinised all of the existing
Thomas Unger new scientific director of CARIM Professor Thomas Unger has been appointed Scientific Director of the CARIM School for Cardiovascular Diseases. Unger (1950) has previously worked as Director of the Institute of Pharmacology and the Center for Cardiovascular Research at the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin and as Chairman of the German Institute for High Blood Pressure Research in Heidelberg. Professor Unger studied medicine in Germany and the UK, obtaining his MD from the University of Heidelberg. He then carried out postdoctoral research at
research on the influence of abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, bullying and the death of a parent. They discovered not only a connection, but that childhood trauma nearly triples the risk of schizophrenia. These findings emphasise that schizophrenia should be seen as a social disorder, caused by a combination of our environment and genetic elements.
Thomas Unger
the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal, Canada, and the Department of Pharmacology in Heidelberg, where he received his PhD in Pharmacology. After completing his PhD, Unger began his academic career as a professor of pharmacology and hypertension research at the University of Heidelberg. Between 1994 and 2001, he was Director of the Institute of Pharmacology at the University of Kiel. He has authored more than 700 scientific publications. Professor Unger’s five-year appointment began on 1 April 2012.
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Portret
Corine de Ruiter
“I believe in the liberating power of knowledge� By Jolien Linssen
If we thought of mass shootings as an American phenomenon, 9 April 2011 proved we needed to change our minds. On that day, Tristan van der Vlis (24) took three firearms into a shopping mall in Alphen aan de Rijn, killing seven people including himself. Several months earlier, Robert M. had been arrested in Amsterdam suspected of what has now become the biggest case of child sex abuse in our country. Serious crimes like these shock the public and call for an explanation. At Maastricht University (UM), professor of Forensic Psychology Corine de Ruiter is looking for that explanation. 12
“As a researcher, I focus mainly on the relationship between criminal behaviour and psychological disorders”, De Ruiter says. “I want to know what drives people to their deeds. It all starts with curiosity.” It is this curiosity that has made her something of a public figure in the Netherlands. As the stories behind the startling news headlines form the subject of her research, she regularly appears on Dutch television and radio programmes. And one thing De Ruiter has shown is that she does not mince words. Lack of expertise “All too often I see colleagues making the wrong diagnosis”, she says. “Take the case of the ‘Bijenkorf mother’, the psychotic woman who in October 2007 threw herself and her 18-month- old daughter from the fourth floor of the department store De Bijenkorf. The psychiatrist and psychologist who examined her concluded that she was suffering from borderline personality disorder. Using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, I couldn’t subscribe to this hypothesis. What I did find out, however, was that the woman had been using herbal diet pills that in some cases might induce psychosis.” It is a striking example of the lack of expertise that De Ruiter witnesses in the Dutch forensic mental health services. “It’s unbelievable that forensic reports lack basic information such as the possible influence of substance abuse”, she says. “To me, this is a consequence of the fact that all clinical and healthcare psychologists in the Netherlands are allowed to work in a forensic setting.” Learning De Ruiter therefore took the initiative
to develop a two-year master’s programme in Forensic Psychology, which started at UM in September 2010. “The bottom line is that diagnostic errors can cause a lot of harm to the people we examine. Good education is a necessity. I wanted to design an international, selective programme that offers us the possibility to thoroughly invest in our students. So far, their performance has been beyond expectations.” Being partly educated in the United States herself, she knows from experience the advantages of an international classroom. De Ruiter: “My time abroad has deeply influenced me both professionally and personally. Looking beyond the borders of the familiar is very instructive in that it forces you to overcome your prejudices.” Treatment Having an open mind would seem to be an indispensable trait for someone who deals with sexual and violent offenders in her daily work; people who, to some, are the embodiment of evil. For De Ruiter, though, the picture is somewhat more nuanced. “We feel pity for a person who violates himself as a result of a psychological disorder”, she explains. “But what’s the fundamental difference from someone who, because of the fact that he’s ill, violates others?” Consequently, our criminal justice system should focus on rehabilitation rather than retribution, she thinks. “Retribution is an awkward idea, because it doesn’t solve the problem. We can’t change the past. What’s more, lengthy imprisonment has proven to be harmful and expensive. Although I don’t deny that there are people who are too dangerous ever to return to society, I believe that forensic experts have the responsibility to search for effective treatments.”
Knowledge Working towards a safer society is not only the business of forensic mental health professionals. According to De Ruiter, we are all responsible. “Some crimes could have been prevented, if only we had paid attention”, she says. “Tristan Van der Vlis made statements about mass murder, while having access to weapons. These are alarming signs that need to be taken seriously. Imagine if the Bijenkorf mother had received antipsychotics in time; then her baby would still be alive.” For this reason, De Ruiter sees sharing her expertise through media appearances as an important part of her work. “I believe in the liberating power of knowledge”, she explains. “By making information about criminal offences available to the public, we can learn from it.” With this goal in mind, she is not bothered by the fact that her media contributions are met with both praise and criticism. “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”
Corine de Ruiter Corine de Ruiter (1960) studied psychology at Utrecht University, Barton College (North Carolina) and the University of Oregon. Before her appointment as professor of Forensic Psychology at the University of Amsterdam in 1999, she worked as a clinical psychologist and cognitive behaviour therapist. In 2008, she took the initiative of developing a two-year master’s programme in Forensic Psychology at Maastricht University, where she is currently professor of Forensic Psychology. De Ruiter often serves as an expert witness in criminal court cases and is regularly interviewed in the national media.
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Professor – Student
Louis Berkvens and Hans van Hall
Professor Louis Berkvens and student Hans van Hall By Jos Cortenraad
At the age of 10, Hans van Hall wondered why the Diepstraat in the picturesque town of Eijsden was so wide. Fifty years later he answers this question himself in his PhD dissertation, ‘Eijsden, een vrijheid met Luikse stadsrechten’ (‘Eijsden: Liberty with Liège City Rights’). “In the Middle Ages, this village had its own justice system. That was unique in the region we now know as South Limburg.” They sit companionably side by side; supervisor Louis Berkvens and PhD candidate Hans van Hall. Both in their 60s, both at the end of first-rate scholarly careers. There are few signs of a typical student–teacher hierarchy in this relationship. “Absolutely not”, the professor says immediately. “We’ve worked on a great book together for six years; on a dissertation with more social relevance than the outside world initially suspected. And it’s been unlike any other PhD project I’ve worked on. Most of the time I spent on it was my own spare time. We usually met at some nice place in the city or at home with a cup of coffee. Pleasantly illegal, I’m tempted to say.” Hans van Hall nods in agreement – although of course illegality had nothing to do with it. “No, it was just hard work”, says the archivist, who works at both the Regional Historic Centre Limburg and the Social His-
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torical Centre for Limburg. “I was able to spend 40% of my working hours on this dissertation for 18 months – which in a sense is a form of subsidy – but in practice, it took a huge toll on my private life as well. I think my wife is happy the book is finally finished. Louis often helped me when times got tough and helped me overcome my doubts. But a dissertation is written in solitude, no matter how strong the bond with your supervisor is.” Book of liberty The interview takes place in the village of Eijsden, which, as it turns out, has been a town for almost 700 years now. “Right”, says Van Hall, placing the 500-page book on the kitchen table. “That’s what we establish in the dissertation. The main evidence was the socalled ‘book of liberty’ that I stumbled upon in the archives. It was dated 1321 and describes the Eijsden
justice system with regulations on trade, taxes, punishments, foreigners and so on. At first I thought it was a fake, but the deeper I dug into piles of government documents, the more convinced I was that this was a unique find.” That was a long time ago. Van Hall, who moved from Naarden to Eijsden with his parents at the age of 10, attributes his dissertation to his legal studies in Utrecht and Nijmegen. “From my bedroom window I’d look down over Eijsden. I was immediately fascinated by the structure of the city centre – the very wide Diepstraat, the relatively small residential lots, its location on the Maas. It was all very unusual, and quite unlike the surrounding villages. I wanted to know why this was, but the idea of doing a PhD on the topic was simmering well under the surface. It was Louis who eventually convinced me.” “That’s right”, says Berkvens. “We’ve known each other for many years. So I know how captivated Hans is by the history of Eijsden. I ended up at Maastricht University in the 1980s. In my position at the Faculty of Law, and later as professor, I had a lot to do with the archives where Hans worked. He and his colleagues were involved in quite a number of PhD projects on legal history and other topics. After all, they really know their way around the archives. I think it’s important for academically trained archivists to do scholarly research. This leads to better knowledge and insight, and archivists with research experience are better able to help others. Next year, the two historical centres will merge into the Historic Centre Limburg, and the university intends to further intensify its existing collaboration with the new institute. A historical research workplace will be set up and, hopefully, there’ll be more space and research funding. Hans’s project can be seen as a prelude to this collaboration; an excellent example of relevant research.”
Right of asylum How does society benefit from the knowledge that Eijsden is officially a town? Van Hall smiles. “Well, it teaches us a lot about the formation of towns in the Late Middle Ages; about the rise of justice systems and how rules were established, about how problems were solved, about the influence of larger cities. This region was very interesting in the Middle Ages and totally un-Dutch, with over 30 different ‘states’. Hardly a unified province at all. And having its own justice system made Eijsden extra special in that regard. The book of liberty from 1321, for example, gives us a detailed account of the rules and obligations of non-Eijsden residents when they moved here, and how ‘foreigners’ from outside the town had to be treated. Right of asylum avant la lettre, you might say.” It came as no surprise to Berkvens that the auditorium and corridors were full to the brim during Van Hall’s PhD defence. “Half of Eijsden was there. It was very special. And the reason is clear: this dissertation says something about our identity, which is something that people find important.”
Louis Berkvens Louis Berkvens (1952) is a legal historian. He has worked at Maastricht University since 1985 and over the years has helped to shape the Department of Legal History. He is currently endowed professor of the Legal History of the Limburg Territories. Hans van Hall Hans van Hall (1949) studied law in Utrecht and Nijmegen before training as an archivist. He has been working at the Regional Historic Centre Limburg since 1976 and the Social Historical Centre for Limburg since 1999.
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Economic model can predict athletic performance
Female athletes will be faster than their male counterparts in the future, several key studies concluded. It was predicted that women would run the 100 metre dash faster than men in the year 2156. Arnaud Dupuy, assistant professor of Economics at Maastricht University,
used a simple economic model to disprove these predictions. According to his calculations, published in an article the International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, the ratio between male and female world records will not change in the future.
Dupuy used the human capital model to explain why the difference between male and female athletic performance is slowly decreasing. In economics, this model is often used to explain the development of wage differentials between men and women. Dupuy applied this model to athletic performance in 10 areas: the 100 metre dash, the 800 metre dash, the marathon, the triple jump, the pole vault, the high jump, the long jump, the 100 metre freestyle, the 1500 metre freestyle and 500 metre speed skating. According to Dupuy, the model shows that the development of female athletic performance cannot be explained by technological developments (like performance-enhancing drugs or special training techniques for women) but is determined by whether or not women participate in the Olympics.
Maastricht University in the top of world universities under fifty years of age Last month two prestigious rankings published their results in the top world universities under the age of 50. In both rankings, Maastricht University scores very high grades. Maastricht University has been identified as the emerging leading young research university in the Netherlands. This excellent position primarily is related to high scores on research impact and internationalisation. Times Higher Education 100 under 50 This new annual ranking, which is published in addition to the prestigious World University Rankings, lists the world’s best 100 universities under the age of 50 years. Maastricht University
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ranked 19, with Pohang University of Science and Technology (South Korea) in the 1st place. Maastricht University is the only Dutch university in this top hundred. In the overall THE World University Ranking published in 2011, Maastricht University was placed 197. The THE 100 Under 50 is based on the same rigorous and comprehensive range of 13 separate performance indicators used to compile the THE World University Rankings, covering all key elements of university performance: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and internationalisation. To better reflect the profile of younger institutions, the indicators have been carefully recalibrated, based on expert consultation.
QS ‘top 50 under 50’ The QS ‘top 50 under 50’ ranking was released on May 29, 2012. Maastricht University ranks number 8. This ranking is lead by The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) (Hong Kong). Maastricht University is also the only Dutch university in this ranking. In the overall QS World University Ranking Maastricht University is positioned 109.
Sleep problems cause multiple personalities Multiple personality disorder is caused not by a traumatic experience, but rather by sleep problems, suggestive lines of questioning and the way in which the disorder is portrayed in the media, suggests new research from Maastricht University. In cooperation with Binghamton University and Emory University, the study was published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a publication of the Association for Psychological Science. Although the general belief in psychology is that patients develop multiple personalities to cope with traumatic experiences from their past (mainly sexual abuse), this assumption is not supported by scientific evidence. Many people with dissociative disorders do say they were
abused as children, but this does not mean the abuse caused their condition, according to the researchers. The article suggests that the disorder seems to arise from a combination of cues, such as suggestive questioning or sensational media portrayals of multiple personalities, to which vulnerable people and those with rich imaginations are especially sensitive. Therapists often use hypnosis or ask leading questions, like “Is there another part of you whom I haven’t spoken with?” These kinds of suggestive therapy techniques can prompt individuals to think their mood swings, confusion and impulsive behaviour are caused by multiple personalities inside their head.
Surprisingly, the research suggests further that sleep problems can also cause vulnerable people to develop dissociation. The researchers kept 25 healthy volunteers from sleeping for one night and found they had many more dissociative experiences than after a good night sleep. This could help to explain a connection between trauma and dissociation, as traumatic memories can disturb sleep.
New, effective treatment for tinnitus A team of researchers from Maastricht, Leuven, Bristol and Cambridge have demonstrated the effectiveness of a new tinnitus treatment in the leading journal The Lancet. Tinnitus is the perception of a noxious, disabling internal sound without an external source. Roughly 15% of the population suffers
from this disorder in varying degrees, along with the associated concentration problems, sleep disturbances, anxiety, depression and extreme fatigue. Sometimes this disorder is so disruptive it seriously impairs their daily functioning and, unfortunately, there is no cure. The research conducted by Rilana Cima
and her colleagues, however, indicates that cognitive behavioural therapy can help improve the daily functioning of tinnitus patients. The research results are so impressive that the editorial team at The Lancet invited a commentary introducing the article, entitled Tinnitus: The end of therapeutic nihilism.
Seven master’s programmes in first place Like last year, Maastricht University is again the highest-scoring general university in the 2012 Master’s Choice Guide (Keuzegids). In the ranking of the best universities, Maastricht took fourth place, after the Open University, Wageningen University and Nijenrode. Of the 34 UM master’s programmes evaluated, seven ranked first within their categories: Management of Learn-
ing; Cultures of Arts, Science and Technology; International Business; Forensic Psychology; Physician–Clinical Researcher; Medicine; and Global Health. The good assessment of UM master’s programmes is consistent with last year, and for a few programmes even better. According to the rector Gerard Mols, “This shows again that our invest-
ment in talent and small-scale education pays off. Maastricht University is constantly innovating its education and this will be one of our priorities for the coming years.”
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International
Maastricht University
can make a difference in Yemen By Graziella Runchina
Contributing to the development of healthcare in Yemen. This was the mission of MUNDO, the UM office for development cooperation, when it launched a four-year, Nuffic-funded project in 2011 to train health workers in the capital city of Sana’a. Due to unrest in Yemen, the project was delayed by a year. But since April 2012, the link between the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences (FHML) and the High Institute for Health Sciences in Sana’a has been re-established. “In response to the recent unrest, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to send a political signal to the Yemeni government, temporarily suspending the Training of Nurses and Health Statisticians project”, explains MUNDO project manager Geraldine van Kasteren. “A travel warning is still in effect, but now that President Saleh has stepped down we’ve been allowed to resume our activities.” PBL For several years now, the three largest universities in Yemen have looked to Maastricht University for inspiration. UM’s flagship educational system, Problem-Based Learning, has attracted particular attention. “Collaborative efforts were being undertaken on various fronts and this project fit in perfectly”, Van Kasteren says. “What really works to our advantage is that the FHML has built up a great reputation in Yemen and the surrounding region over the years.” Foreign aid welcome “Healthcare in Yemen is both qualita-
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tively and quantitatively inadequate, so any form of foreign aid is welcome. There aren’t enough doctors, nurses or midwives, which partly explains why the child mortality rate is so high.” Universities across Yemen produce very few doctors – far fewer than necessary for the country’s 24 million inhabitants. Currently, there are only 0.3 doctors for every 1000 Yemenis, compared to 4 for every 1000 inhabitants of the Netherlands. “Add to that the fact that many newly graduated doctors leave for neighbouring countries, which means Yemen is forced to recruit doctors and nurses from abroad to avoid a real disaster. We can make a big difference with this project. Together with regional experts from the University of Suez in Egypt and our own Hogeschool Zuyd, we studied the market demands placed on nurses and adapted our programmes accordingly. By providing support for these programmes, their quality will only increase. And we’re doing the same thing for the health statistician programme.”
UM training of nurses in Yemen
Spinoff Van Kasteren is convinced that launching the project could mean a big step forward for a country like Yemen. “Although we won’t be able to measure it exactly, we do expect an enormous spinoff. The universities have been isolated for a long time and we’re already starting to notice that they’re finding it easier to link up with international networks in their disciplines. Initiatives like this also have a huge impact at a policy level as well.” With almost € 1 million in funding for the project, Van Kasteren and her team are training several dozen educators to pass on their knowledge to hundreds of students. “We’re teaching local nurses how to design training and courses so that students are given centre stage. In this effort, the support of practitioners from Hogeschool Zuyd is indispensable.” ‘Third sex’ Van Kasteren felt perfectly safe each time she visited Yemen. “But as a for-
eign woman I did feel like the ‘third sex’. On the work floor I feel equal to men, but from a social perspective it’s quite different.” She never leaves the house alone without a headscarf and was expected to stay in separate ‘women’s quarters’ during a dinner at the faculty dean’s house. “But I feel good in Yemen”, she says. “I’m not a tourist so I’m not a target for attacks. And most of the time, when I’m in public I’m surrounded by doctors or deans. That makes my position very special.” Cultural context “We’re used to applying our knowledge in our own culture, in our own daily lives”, she continues. “In many cases, applying our expertise in a very different cultural context leads to new and often surprising insights. We share our knowledge, expertise and experience in the field of education to help develop other institutes, and in turn we learn a lot about education and management systems. We can then use this
increasing expertise at home, for example in the International Track in Medicine or with the King Abdullah Scholarship students from Saudi Arabia.”
Geraldine van Kasteren Geraldine van Kasteren (1967) studied Medicine at Maastricht University and spent several years working in regional health centres and hospitals. She has been involved in medical education in developing countries since 1993, and has previously lived and worked in Kenya and Sudan. She is currently the coordinator of SHE Collaborates, the new FHML office for international cooperation.
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Debate
“The people
are running wild!” By Hans van Vinkeveen
The recent display of anger by citizens is testament to the success of democracy, according to Sjaak Koenis, professor of Social Philosophy. “Oh come on”, says Lies Wesseling, professor of Arts and Culture, with a sneer. “Populism is mostly based on self-sustaining rage.” Here, they roll up their sleeves for a debate on emotivism, the role of the elite and the emancipatory value of populism.
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Their conflicting opinions are clear at once in their response to a statement by Oscar Wilde: “Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.” Koenis couldn’t agree more. “If you look back through history you’ll see that people start joining movements when they feel unhappy about their own situation.” As the central claim of his inaugural lecture, The Democratisation of Resentment, this view comes as no surprise. In a democracy, emancipation and unease are intimately connected. “Resentment fuels the engine of emancipation.” “But what good does it do?” asks Wesseling. She is speaking, she says, as a citizen and not as a scholar. Wesseling is disturbed by the excessive emotivism that dominates the present political climate. “Feelings are replacing arguments and arguments are being written off as feelings. Anger is being given free reign, and herein lies the failure of democracy.” In her view, Koenis’s analysis of this anger leads to serious emancipatory movements being lumped together with populism. (Un)justified anger For Wesseling, discontent alone is not enough to engender progress. There is a distinction between righteous indignation and self-sustaining rage. But she goes further: righteous anger, such as criticism of the elite, can take the wrong political turn. “It’s unjustifiable that a CEO running a large corporation into the ground can take home a pot of money, while a mid-level manager at Ikea is pushed aside for failing to meet his target.
I can well imagine that he’d go looking for a way to give political weight to his anger. But the way a populist party like the PVV tries to exploit this is a different kettle of fish.” “Yes, a distinction between justified and unjustified discontent is important,” says Koenis, “but this only holds for citizens and is decided in the political arena. Academics must be very careful about making any value judgements. What I do is: first look at what’s happening. And then assess the anger, or to put it better, the social discontent, resulting from a growing equality that is becoming increasingly visible.” Public democracy What Koenis’s tale of modern discontent lacks, according to Wesseling, is the role of the media. “These days they’re just bypassing all the gatekeepers. Anything you find, you just throw it up on your blog. And take a broadcasting company like Powned or Rutger van Castricum. Because they constantly fail to discuss anything of value, they’re undermining democracy.” Koenis is more positive about the contemporary media. “Removing these intermediaries is a good example of emancipation. In the past, political leaders would just decide what to broadcast. The new media has allowed for greater citizen emancipation.” “But what exactly does that last phrase mean?” asks Wesseling. “Freedom of speech alone is not enough. There should be a course of action, a direction, a purpose.” According to her, this was the case with the classic emancipation
movements, but is not true of populism. So what is the emancipatory value of populism? “The new emancipation lies in the fact that, these days, citizens can make their own choices. The public, not the political parties, determine what’s important for politics. Populist politicians were the first to realise this.” Perverse scapegoat mechanism It takes some getting used to: Geert Wilders as the Joke Smit of the poorly educated citizen. “Sure, you could say that in jest. But we can’t deny that these citizens now have the feeling that they’re really being heard. That’s why Wilders and the PVV are so popular. He mobilises the anger of insecure and isolated citizens who feel they’ve been abandoned”, says Koenis. In his view, this also explains the turbulent rise of the PVV in Limburg: feelings of discontent fuelled by issues like migration, criminality, poor political representation, high demands on social capital, Europe. Many people simply can’t keep up with modern times. So what does the PVV offer them? “Very little”, Koenis admits. “People are calling for a regional identity: Limburg for the Limburgers. But it seems to me that, other than subsidising this fanfare, they’re doing very little to strengthen the fabric of the community.” “The tragedy is that, insofar as we can speak of justifiable anger, it’s all so individualistic”, says Wesseling. “That resolute feeling of injustice is not being translated into social change. And it can’t be. The PVV has no clear constituency and mobilises
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Debate
people by creating an imaginary enemy that’s constantly changing: Muslims, politicians and now the anti-Poland website. So this discontent can’t be translated into concrete policies; it remains at the rhetorical level. To me, this is a perverse scapegoat mechanism that only serves to undermine democracy.” Small-scale initiatives One thing the pair of professors can agree on is that there is plenty of emancipation left to be done. But emancipation has taken on a different form, and the role of the elite has become more modest.
“The loftiness of old has been cast aside, those days when the elite served to set an example. That nice structure of an ideal, a leading elite and the people who followed them, is gone. Now, the people are running wild!” says Koenis. “The point is that we no longer recognise emancipatory movements as such”, Wesseling adds. “They’re mainly small-scale initiatives, but in this global world they can band together extremely fast.” She uses the slow food movement as an example. “That has everything, including a critical societal analysis.”
So where are the intellectuals in all of this? “The elite are still part of the movement, though they may no longer be leading it”, Wesseling says. “The question is not where the intellectuals are, but where are the established political parties?” Koenis agrees: “Because the established parties are focused on The Hague and Brussels, this new political arena is completely passing them by.” And there it is at last – a consensus. High time to conclude the discussion.
Sjaak Koenis Sjaak Koenis (1955) is professor of Social Philosophy at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and programme director of the Master in Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on the relationship between political philosophy and social theory, the role of norms and values, and the end of ideology. Lies Wesseling Lies Wesseling (1958) is a professor at the Department of Literature and Art and director of the Centre for Gender and Diversity at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. She is studying the narrative techniques that adoptive parents use to transform children from different countries into close family members.
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Exercise an effective remedy for blood sugar peaks Diabetes type 2 patients who exercise regularly experience substantially lower peaks in their blood sugar levels after meals. But they do not need to exercise every day, as previously thought. The effects of 30 minutes of daily exercise are the same as longer, one-hour sessions every other day. These are the conclusions of a publication in the journal Diabetes Care, authored by PhD student Jan-Willem van Dijk and his fellow researchers from Maastricht University.
Maastricht researchers awarded TOP grant Maastricht University professors Peter Schotman, Franz Palm, Antoon Pelsser and Jean-Pierre Urbain have been awarded a € 750,000 NWO grant for their research project entitled “Model Uncertainty”. Models are an important aspect of economic and financial policymaking, but tend to be flawed. How can
The study was conducted among 30 men with diabetes type 2, aged around 60. They participated in three experiments. In the first, they cycled for 60 minutes on the first day, followed by a rest day. During the second experiment they cycled for 30 minutes on two consecutive days. In the third experiment they didn’t exercise at all. During the exercise sessions and the subsequent days their blood sugar levels were monitored continuously. When the men didn’t exercise at all, a high blood sugar level was recorded 32% of the time. But when
they exercised, their blood sugar was in the high range only 24% of the time, regardless of the exercise regime.
policymakers create more reliable models that address the limitations of the models themselves? This is one of the questions the researchers hope to answer.
“The Achilles heel of this approach is drafting the list of scenarios and probabilities”, Pelsser explains. “If we take the wrong scenarios into consideration or misjudge the probability of them occurring, our models will make an incorrect assessment, which could lead to the wrong decision. This is what we call ‘model uncertainty’.”
Many economic models are used to make the best possible decisions in a world of uncertainty. This is true of decisions made by policymakers on the macro level, as well as those used to describe the behaviour of individuals in our economy. An economic model is used to describe our uncertain world as follows: all possible future scenarios are identified and ascribed a probability score. This list of possible scenarios and probabilities is then used to weigh the impact of good and bad outcomes in order to reach the best possible decision.
Co-author Luc van Loon, professor of Exercise Physiology, is enthusiastic about the research results: ‘It’s extremely unusual that such a small amount of effort can yield such a big result. No medications could achieve this, which makes exercise unique here. Added to this, and in contrast to all medications, the side effects of exercise also promote good health.’
The research will primarily focus on financial investment and monetary policies. An important research question is to what extent model uncertainty among investors influences the price fluctuations of high-risk investments. The TOP grant is intended for excellent research groups within the social and behavioural sciences.
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European Eye Centre
Maastricht UMC Eye Clinic
From jungle outpost to top clinical eye care By Loek Kusiak
He is considered the founding father of the prestigious Maastricht UMC Eye Clinic, which opened its doors in 2011 and now attracts patients from around the country. No detail escaped Professor Fred Hendrikse in designing the Oogtoren, the new location of the Eye Clinic. Hendrikse has been head of the Department of Ophthalmology for 20 years, and, following his 65th birthday, will stay on as an educator and PhD supervisor for two more years. Shoved against the wall of his sixthfloor office in the Eye Clinic, buried among other bits and pieces, is a black-and-white aerial photo of a rainforest in Suriname. “As a doctor of tropical medicine, I treated my patients in the huts between the
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trees there”, Hendrikse points. “I ran a mobile eye clinic in an area slightly larger than the Netherlands.” He had originally planned to become an orthopaedic surgeon, but, having taught himself the principles of ophthalmology in a crash course,
he spent four years performing basic cataract surgery in Suriname. “I discovered that in the tropics, ophthalmology is extremely effective in treating infectious diseases caused by parasites. Cataract patients come in with canes and throw them away
a day later. Amazing really. The fine motor skills involved in eye surgery gave me an artistic incentive I couldn’t have found in other medical disciplines.” More than 35 years later, there could be no bigger contrast with that young doctor, trekking through the rainforest with only basic resources. As a professor, he can look back with pride on the foundation of an academic eye clinic that now rates among the top centres in Europe. This says a lot about Hendrikse’s pioneering spirit. He sums up his career as a “curious response to the opportunities that happened to come my way. But I did have an eye for attracting good employees.” Legal struggle As a professor in Nijmegen, Hendrikse was asked to transform what was then a peripheral eye department in Maastricht into something more academic. “I was really excited by the spirit here in the south. We started a kind of private clinic avant la lettre for national health patients in the Annadal Hospital. We were quite wayward in a legal sense, but we got the support of health insurers and the hospital board because we drew so many patients from outside the region. Profits were spent on improving the clinic and expanding the medical staff. I never thought that, in negotiations with the Atrium Medical Centre, we would take over the clinics in Heerlen and Brunssum. Or that we would do so based on the belief in bringing academic care to the patient, not the other way around. Our Euregional clinic was gradually able to compete with the Randstad, and now 70% of our patients come from outside the region.” Another notable turn of events was the 2008 acquisition of the clinic run by the renowned eye specialist Camille Budo in Sint Truiden, Belgium. This, according to Hendrikse, inspired a “unique concept”: “Belgian patients
are not limited by health insurance regulations, and so have access to the expertise of Maastricht ophthalmologists during their weekly consultation hours. And we’re still negotiating a full partnership with a group of six ophthalmologists in Zeeland whom we already work with.” Emotional appeal The 2011 opening of the seven-storey Oogtoren, officially called the Pélerintoren, was Hendrikse’s finest hour. “It means a lot to see the tangible results of something you’ve worked for day and night”, he says. “We have 4 operating rooms, 22 doctors, 20 PhD candidates and 100,000 patients per year. And we’re the first hospital in the Netherlands to receive European certification as top care clinic, a European Eye Centre.” Hendrikse discusses the “emotional appeal” of the clinic with pride: “We did our best to create a sense of safety and wellbeing for our patients in terms of design, colour scheme and logistics. The medical staff thought long and hard about every detail.” The fact that all Oogtoren staff are on the payroll also sends a signal to patients that no commercial interests are being served by specific treatments. “This is very different from independent treatment centres, where unnecessary operations are often performed to increase profits. And when they go wrong, our clinic is there to clean up the mess, which only raises healthcare costs.” Injections The ageing population and the effects of diabetes mean that visual impairment is on the rise in the Netherlands. According to Hendrikse, improved treatment methods for macular degeneration – deterioration of the central part of the retina – is an important development. “These days we can simply inject medication that can greatly improve vision. But the
precision techniques for laser cataract surgery in our Oogtoren are also a great step forwards.” In early 2012, management of the eye clinic was transferred to Professor Carroll Webers. The 65-year-old Hendrikse was officially of retirement age, but chose to stay on for another two years as an educator and PhD supervisor. “It would be a shame to wake up on your 65th birthday and suddenly no longer belong to this wonderful clinic.”
Fred Hendrikse
Fred Hendrikse Fred Hendrikse (1947) studied in Rotterdam and worked as a doctor of tropical medicine in Suriname from 1973 to 1977. He studied ophthalmology at Radboud University Nijmegen and was head of the Maastricht UMC Eye Clinic from 1992 to 2012. He also headed the Department of Ophthalmology at the University Hospital Brussels from 2008 to 2010 and was appointed Knight of the Order of Orange Nassau in 2010.
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Off the job
NSO at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw
“When I play, I forget everything else” By Annelotte Huiskes
Medical studies or the music conservatory? This was the difficult decision facing the 19-year-old Angelique Hollands when she was accepted into both programmes last year. She opted for medicine at Maastricht University, but performed with the Dutch National Student Orchestra (NSO) in February this year. Her résumé now includes performances at celebrated concert halls like the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and De Doelen in Rotterdam, where she played an English horn solo in Le Sacre du Printemps by Igor Stravinsky. 26
“The piece opens with the bassoon and then the English horn comes in. I’m not usually so nervous, but this time I was a nervous wreck. All I could think was: ‘I’m up next’. It’s a hard solo and I’d had to put in hours of practice. Thankfully, all of the concerts went well and during the radio show I sounded exactly how I’d hoped. I guess the extra tension of ‘I can’t mess it up now’ worked out in the end.” The NSO consists of roughly 100 students from Dutch universities and institutes for higher vocational education. They are selected through auditions for a month of high-level performances, including a tour of the great Dutch concert halls and a studio recording. As the NSO is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, the orchestra also performed live on Radio 4. Audience The tour came to a close with two concerts in Rome, a unique experience for Angelique. “Dutch audiences tend to be more serious; in Rome they talk more and respond more directly. They’re happier but also more critical. In the Netherlands, everyone stands up to applaud as soon as the show ends, and when one person stands, they all stand. In Italy you really have to work for a standing ovation. They also listen more intently and classical music has more of a following. Parents take their kids to concerts, which makes for a much younger audience. Here, the average age is 50.” The most boisterous audience, however, was in Nijmegen, where the NSO performed for an audience of deaf children. “I didn’t expect that at all, quite the opposite; I thought they’d be really quiet. The kids were given balloons so they could feel the vibrations of the music, and there was an aroma jockey so they could smell the atmosphere. There were dancers too. After the show lots of the kids came up to personally thank us. That was really special.” Musical genes Angelique has music in her genes. Her grandfather was a professional tuba player, her mother plays the flute and teaches music, her father plays the bass clarinet and saxophone, and both of her brothers are musicians, one on percussion and the other on clarinet. Angelique opted for the oboe. “My babysitter played the oboe and it was so beautiful I wanted to play it too. The oboe has a piercing sound, but if it sounds shrill it’s the fault of the player. It can be downright ugly, but it can also be beautiful. That depends on your physical stature and how you were taught to play. I prefer a warmer sound. I played the E-flat clarinet for
a year before picking up the oboe because my fingers were too small for it. Now I play the English horn as well.” An instrument says a lot about its player, Angelique thinks. In her opinion, oboe players are often precocious with strong personalities. “You can always hear an oboe, and you play a key role in the orchestra. That means you need courage to play; you can’t hide behind the other instruments. Most orchestras also divide the string and wind instruments into two separate sections. Violins are a different group altogether. A lot of wind instrumentalists have their roots in fanfare or concert bands and so come from particular music associations. Often they also come from the south, which immediately creates a bond.” Choices Angelique chose to study medicine because budget cuts in the cultural sector have meant fewer jobs for professional musicians. But she continues to make music alongside her studies. She has performed in a concert band since she was 10 years old, and still does today: with the Kaalheide concert band, the Thorn concert band – the crème de la crème of concert bands – and the Limburg Youth Orchestra Amikejo. But the NSO was an experience in itself. “My performance skills have improved, I’ve learned how to play better with other musicians and I’ve gained orchestra experience. The NSO is important; it shows that today’s youth is still interested in classical music. They have no problem assembling an orchestra of 106 students. And if that many young people want to make music, surely there has to be a future for it?” Angelique recently returned to university and has caught up on her studies. “My new course started yesterday, and guess what? My tutor graduated from the music conservatory last year as a vocalist as well as a microbiologist. That makes me think it is possible, having both. In the end, playing is the best thing there is. When you’re playing in an orchestra, you just forget everything else.”
Angelique Hollands
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Research in Limburg
Leonie Cornips
A plea for multilingualism By Annelotte Huiskes
Leonie Cornips, endowed professor of Linguistic Culture in Limburg, would like to set up a prize for parents who raise their children in the regional dialect. If the Limburg dialect is to survive, people must continue to speak it. What’s more, research shows that speaking a regional dialect does not have a negative impact on the Dutch language, as was once thought. On the contrary: children who speak both Dutch and a regional dialect from a young age learn certain linguistic phenomena of Dutch faster than children who only speak Dutch. According to Cornips, this is just one of the many advantages of multilingualism. Cornips is thrilled with the professorship Linguistic Culture in Limburg. Studying linguistic culture means looking not just at the organisation of a linguistic system, but also at its social context. And this is exactly
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what she wants to do. “I want to know more about the people behind the language, which is why my research focuses on the spoken dialect and other forms of multilingualism. I ask questions like: What
do individuals achieve by speaking a certain way? How do they distinguish themselves and what effect does this have on language varieties and language change?” According to Cornips, linguistic culture is the interplay of the ideas people have about language and how they actually use language. These are often two separate things. “For instance, many Dutch people think the Netherlands has only one language: Standard Dutch. But multilingualism is the rule rather than the exception. Everyone has an idea of how Standard Dutch should sound, yet no-one actually speaks it. Some come close, but true Standard Dutch does not exist, and nor is there just one, true Limburg dialect.” Mother tongue Cornips was raised in a multilingual household. Her mother tongue is not Standard Dutch, but the Dutch of her birthplace, Heerlen. Outside Limburg, ‘Heerlen Dutch’ is considered incorrect Dutch that should be unlearned at school as quickly as possible. In Limburg itself, the Heerlen dialect is preferred over Heerlen Dutch. It was due to this very condemnation of her own mother tongue that Cornips decided to do her PhD in linguistics. “Heerlen Dutch has developed its own linguistic system that is based on the regional dialect and that is absolutely not Standard Dutch. It has a beautiful mathematical structure and its own logic and, from a linguistic perspective, is in no way inferior to Standard Dutch. It’s a perfect variety and in that sense comparable with all sorts of new varieties of Dutch like Moroccan Dutch, Surinamese Dutch or Turkish Dutch – varieties that I later went on to study. Linguistically speaking, these varieties are similar to Standard Dutch, but ideologically they’re considered inferior.” Status Just like Heerlen Dutch or Moroccan Dutch, the Limburg dialect has a lower social status than Standard Dutch. This is linguistically unjustified, and fails to do justice to the benefits that such Limburg bilingualism can bring. For example, bilingual children find it much easier to pick up a third or fourth language. “Limburg’s multilingualism is not a weakness, but a strength. The province should take pride in its linguistic talent.” Standard Dutch Limburg is a unique case for research on linguistic culture. Nowhere else in the Netherlands can so many language varieties be found in such a relatively small area. Moreover, the regional dialect is spoken by people of all social classes; something that cannot be said for any other dialect in the country. This
has to do with the relative newness of Limburg as a Dutch province. “When the European nation states were being formed in the 19th century, people needed a unifying factor, which was language. That’s how standard French, English, German and Dutch came to be. Standard Dutch was originally a dialect spoken in Holland by the powerful political elite of the time. They transformed their regional dialect into a national language; a process of standardisation that took hundreds of years and still continues to this day. The Limburg elite spoke French, those in the east spoke German and everyone also spoke their own local dialects. Because Limburg joined the Netherlands relatively late, it managed to avoid the process of ‘Dutchification’ for a long time. Many dialects in the western Netherlands were lost due to the standardisation of the Dutch language. This is not yet the case in Limburg.”
Identity Given this history, pessimists predict the disappearance of the Limburg dialects. Erroneously, according to Cornips. “They certainly will change. Research over the past 50 years has shown that these different dialects are starting to merge and together head in the direction of Standard Dutch. But you also see certain differences becoming larger. And it’s these differences that continue to exist which I find so interesting in my research on linguistic culture, because they’re likely to play a crucial role in the creation of a social and regional identity. In this sense, Limburg has a unique linguistic landscape. Nowhere else in the Netherlands can you see so clearly that everyone speaks very differently here in Limburg. There’s north, central and south Limburg. In the south you have Heerlen versus Maastricht, and within Maastricht you have many different neighbourhoods where you can see this mechanism continually repeating itself. All these different perceptions of what constitutes a ‘place’ mean that local differences will always continue to exist.”
Leonie Cornips Leonie Cornips (1960) was appointed part-time endowed professor of Linguistic Culture in Limburg at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in 2011. She held her inaugural lecture entitled “Languages in Motion” on 11 May 2012. She also works as a researcher in language variation at the Meertens Institute in Amsterdam. Her book ‘Eigen en vreemd. Meertaligheid in Nederland (Private and strange: Multilingualism in the Netherlands)’ was published by Amsterdam University Press in 2012
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PhD research
Joost Pennings
Two nurses from Brinkgreven demonstrate how to ‘wrap’ agitated patients
“Historical awareness
is of great importance to our profession”
By Jolien Linssen
In 1907, representatives of more than 35 countries assembled for the first international conference on psychiatry, neurology, psychology and asylum nursing in Amsterdam. The first country in the world to allow female nurses into male wards and men into nursing education, the Netherlands was nothing but revolutionary. “And this is characteristic of the early development of the psychiatric nursing tradition in our country”, says Cecile aan de Stegge, who wrote her PhD dissertation on the history of this often ill-understood profession. After 12 years of research, the result is a book of no fewer than 1088 pages. 30
“As a policymaker at the psychomedical centre Vijverdal Maastricht, I worried about the education of young nurses”, Aan de Stegge explains. “The question was whether we should move in a more medical or pedagogical direction. I realised that in order to grasp the problems we were facing, I needed to understand where we were coming from.” To her own surprise, she discovered that the tradition of psychiatric nursing in the Netherlands has, from its very early days, combined both medical and pedagogical elements. “The job of a psychiatric nurse has never been a purely medical one”, she says. “It’s widely believed that in former times patients were commonly kept in bed, or that many of them received prolonged bath treatment. The truth is, in fact, different. There has never been the money for such labour-intensive therapies.” History Aan de Stegge starts her historical overview in 1837. With mentally ill people living in wretched conditions, the renowned physician J.L.C. Schroeder van der Kolk called for a reform of Dutch mental asylums with one goal in mind: medical treatment and attentive human care for those who were considered unpredictable or dangerous. As Aan de Stegge’s research shows, this ideal has been pursued in varying ways. “At the end of the 19th century, the mentally ill were viewed as children who could not be held accountable for their behaviour. Therefore, nurses ought to control themselves at all times”, she explains. “Interestingly, physical nearness was promoted as a means to calm down distressed patients, which is something we’re doing again today.” The year 1926 signalled a radical change in the perception of
patients’ conduct; they were now held responsible for their deeds. “This led to the introduction of therapeutic labour as a means to prepare patients for their possible re-entry into society, which, after the Second World War, was complemented with recreational activities. Nurses started to ask themselves how they could make their patients’ lives enjoyable.” Finally, from the 1970s, both nurses and patients increasingly began standing up for their rights. While the former called for educational reforms, the latter demanded an improvement in their legal status. “Overall, it’s clear that the psychiatric sector has been very poor throughout the ages”, Aan de Stegge concludes. “We’ve always been considered somewhat inferior to regular nursing. Psychiatric nurses needed to work hard, often without social recognition. What I found remarkable was the high percentage of male nurses. As it was them who struggled for better working conditions and wages, they’ve played a pivotal role in the development of the profession.” Future Where does this leave us, 175 years after Schroeder van der Kolk articulated his dream for the future? According to Aan de Stegge, the goal has not yet been reached. “The Netherlands used to be a forerunner, but at the moment we’re in the midst of an identity crisis. The field of mental healthcare has been severely hit by financial cutbacks, which is a sign that the government still has difficulty accepting mental wellbeing as an issue of public health. Moreover, only minimal attention is paid to psychiatric problems in general nursing education. I find this alarming, because it means that even fewer
young professionals are opting for a career in the psychiatric sector.” Clearly, there is still a lot of work to be done. For that matter, Aan de Stegge has plenty of ideas when it comes to her own future. “I definitely want to continue writing”, she says. “I intend to write a book on the period of the Second World War, which is a dark page in the history of psychiatry. I could also be interested in teaching. This research has not only given me a lot of knowledge, but also put the psychiatric profession in the limelight.”
Cecile aan de Stegge
Cecile aan de Stegge Cecile aan de Stegge (1957) was educated as a psychiatric nurse at Stichting St. Bavo in Noordwijkerhout. She studied Western philosophy in Leiden, minoring in mental health policy. At the psycho-medical centre Vijverdal Maastricht, she first held a staff management position in the nursing department and later worked as a policymaker in the field of care quality. She also founded the professional association of psychiatric nurses and helps to train nursing specialists in mental health. Aan de Stegge obtained her PhD at Maastricht University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Her thesis, ‘Gekkenwerk’, can be ordered via www.cecileaandestegge.nl or in the Maastricht bookshop De Tribune.
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Louis Delahaije
“I’m a sports freak
who always has to perform” By Hans van Vinkeveen
Louis Delahaije went from being an athlete who did some research to a researcher of athletes. He studied Human Movement Science – a ‘messy’ discipline where he could experiment to his heart’s content – coached the national triathlon team, and is now a trainer-coach for the Rabobank cycling team. “I never thought I’d work at such a high level.” Delahaije certainly cuts an athletic figure – which is not surprising, for
someone who regularly competes in marathons and triathlons. In the hallway of his home in Geulle, a racing bike stands at the ready. He plans to take it for a “quick spin” (read: a 12 kilo-
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metre endurance ride) later. His coffee table is piled high with books like Lore of running and Power meter and his kitchen cabinets are lined with colourful water bottles from his employer, Rabobank. His task: helping professional cyclists to perform better
through training and nutrition. But the challenge holds for him, too: “I’m a real sports freak who always has to perform.” His passion for sports, endurance sports in particular, began at a very
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young age. As a teenager, Delahaije belonged to the top running team in the region. “I got a kick purely out of performing, out of getting results”, he says. Later he turned to triathlons and read everything he could find on training to enhance his performance. Until he discovered that he fell short of the absolute top: “A true athlete is able to slave away every day, even when it gets badly uncomfortable. I didn’t have that special talent of pushing myself outside my comfort zone.” Athletic researcher Delahaije’s real talent lay in coaching young athletes and cyclists. He went from being an athlete who dabbled in research, to a researcher of athletes. In 1987, he made the conscious choice to study Human Movement Science at Maastricht University. “It was a messy programme that taught you to branch off in all sorts of different directions. You’d see someone running for the bus and decide to do heart research. I used the first heart monitors to conduct experiments in my parents’ shed”, he says with a smile. Some of the best memories from his student days involve debates with professors like Hans Keizer or ex-skater Harm Kuipers. “Very approachable people who belonged to the top of the physiology field.” At the age of 26, Delahaije became coach of the national triathlon team – a new sport with plenty of room to experiment with training and nutrition. He also learned how to coach. “You need to somehow persuade a 17-yearold to spend 20 hours a week training. Coaching is basically just influencing people.” Thanks to the success of his triathlon team, he began coaching the Rabobank team in 2004. Cycling is a professional sport but, he says, the training programme at the time did not reflect this. Delahaije still remem-
bers the day he, the unknown trainer, first met the famous cyclist Michael Boogerd at his home. “I asked him: What can I do for you? And he said: You tell me what I should do. That was great, having the trust of such a top cyclist.” Scientific approach Delahaije takes a scientific approach to his job, and the pressure to innovate is constant. He and his fellow
Rabo trainers stay up to date on all the latest scientific developments. What’s the best wind tunnel? What’s the best time to do weights training? His team is also a frontrunner in the field of nutritional research. “Training with a low carbohydrate supply makes a huge difference on the molecular level. It’s mentally and physically very hard, but there’s a lot to be gained from it.” Delahaije realises he has gradually become more of a coach. “That’s my strength. I pay attention to the workrest ratio and the private lives of my athletes. A bunch of them just became first-time dads, so I look at how this influences their lives, their training schedules and their competitions. That’s how you find a method that works for every individual. And by staying calm and relaxed myself I can take away some of the stress of my cyclists. The ultimate goal is to make them feel so special they rise above their own talents.” Extreme ups and downs Delahaije watches the races at home on TV, at the training camp, or while riding along in the convoy. He’s often a nervous wreck – particularly during the last Tour de France, which saw the fall of many cycling greats. He takes his time to reflect on the highlights of his career as a trainer-coach. They mainly consist of his cyclists’ perfor-
mances: the 2010 Tour de France, for example, when Denis Menstjov placed second and Robert Gesink fifth. “I never thought I’d work at such a high level”, he says. And no, he won’t offer a prediction for the upcoming Tour or the Olympics. Cycling is too unpredictable for that. “Last year our preparations were better than ever, but then Gesink hit the ground at 70 kilometres an hour. And that’s it, goodbye Tour. But you do learn to deal with extreme ups and downs. You wouldn’t be able to do this job otherwise.”
The ambition to perform is still very much there, he says. With new cyclists turning up all the time, Delahaije rejects the idea of a growing generation gap or a spoiled, back-seat generation. “Nonsense. There’s plenty of new talent, and the competition is better than ever before.” Another motivation is his ongoing desire to innovate by way of scientific research. Delahaije still stops by Maastricht University every now and then, “for a good oldfashioned debate with the human movement researchers on training, nutrition, or other aspects of endurance sports.”
Rabobank team
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Monnar, India
“Maastricht
has great extras” By Jos Cortenraad
After two bachelor’s degrees and two master’s degrees at Maastricht University (UM), Bert Fastré spent a year working as a student recruitment officer for the Maastricht Education and Research Centre (MERC) in Bangalore. This spring he returned to South Limburg in the hopes of launching his career in the legal or business sectors.
“No, I’m not one of those eternal students. Six years was long enough.” The 25-year-old from Tongeren, Belgium, certainly has a sense of humour. Or is that just typical Belgian modesty? In any event, this UM alumnus flew through the European Studies, Law, European Law School and Corporate Law programmes in record
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time – a remarkable achievement. After his studies he was given the chance to work at MERC in Bangalore, India. “It was a great opportunity, especially since I wanted to spend a year abroad anyway and might not have had the chance later on. And I don’t regret a second of it, but I do want to take the next step towards
a real job. Which is easier said than done. There aren’t all that many good jobs on offer in the legal sector.” Flourishing market Surely there are plenty of opportunities for top graduates? “Well, the market for lawyers is not exactly flourishing. Even in the US the
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number of legal jobs is on the decline, which is quite something. It’s hard to find a good job in this region. Just like the headquarters of large corporations, almost all the big law firms are in and around Amsterdam or Brussels. I’d prefer to stay here in the south. I was born in this area, and my friends and family all live here. My girlfriend is just as attached to the place as I am.” Attached to the region? This sounds strange, coming from someone who spent his studies travelling the world as a tour guide and recruitment officer. “Maybe,” he says, “but the quality of life is high in Limburg. On the other hand, I’m quite internationally oriented. After all, I chose European Studies and later the master’s in European Law for a reason. And I worked for various recruitment teams throughout my studies, first promoting Maastricht in Belgium, then later also in China, Turkey, India, the UK and the US. This international and theoretical background and practical experience should come in very handy when I get a job. As a lawyer, you look beyond borders, especially in a border region like South Limburg.”
PBL Fastré deliberately chose Maastricht at the age of 18. “Problem-Based Learning really appealed to me. At first, I didn’t really know what I wanted to study. That’s why I chose European Studies – it’s very broad and a great stepping stone to law. In the end I got most interested in corporate and trade law.”
fiancée, a social science graduate. “India is one of UM’s target countries. And understandably so; many Indians go looking for a suitable master’s programme abroad when they finish their bachelor’s degree. There’s a lot of potential there, with many thousands of graduates every year. But it’s not easy to convince a substantial number of them to come to the Netherlands. We’re competing with prestigious universities in England, America and Australia. What do they know about the Netherlands, let alone Maastricht? But still, with our small team we did manage to get 250 registrations. Not a bad result.” UM does face certain natural barriers, but it also has attractive extras. “The tuition fees for master’s programmes in the Netherlands are only €12,000. This is half the price compared to the US and UK. But it’s a lot of money by Indian standards, so price certainly plays a role. In Maastricht we also offer a broad range of courses and excellent quality. The programmes International Business, Supply Chain Management, Life Sciences and International Law have been drawing particular attention in India. I expect more Indian students to come to
Maastricht in the future. It’s just a matter of investing more in recruitment and raising awareness. We did that by holding presentations at Indian schools, universities and education fairs, and by e-marketing and advertising in newspapers. Strangely, the print media generated the highest response in India. We also organised information sessions in hotel lobbies throughout India every three weeks or so. The personal approach works best; you really get to explain what you have to offer.” Education Despite the difficult market, Fastré expects to find work as a lawyer soon. “Law firms offer three-year internship programmes that are very practical, which fits perfectly with my time in India. And of course with the PBL system in Maastricht. In PBL, you get to work on concrete cases. This helps you better translate theory into practice, which is exactly what will be expected of me in the business world. I’m looking forward to this new step, to my first real job. I have no plans beyond that. Maybe one day I’d like to get my PhD, but only if I come across a great topic in practice.”
Bert Fastré and Katherine Diakidis on a school visit in Hyderabad
It was thanks to his experience in student recruitment – and perhaps also his performance in the 2009 competition for the “best UM student assistant” – that he ended up in Bangalore last year, together with his
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University Fund
Limburg University Fund makes record donation for brain research By Jos Kievits
The board of the Limburg University Fund/SWOL has pledged to give €250,000 to Brains Unlimited to conduct brain research. A Maastricht University (UM) spinoff and collaboration between UM,
the Maastricht UMC+ and the Province of Limburg, Brains Unlimited is currently building a new HfMRI
scanner lab in Randwyck. The donation is one of the largest financial contributions UM has received
from the Limburg University Fund since its founding in 1965. Donations from companies, private sponsors, and UM staff and alumni make such contributions possible.
The financial windfall for the soonto-be-established Brains Unlimited Pioneer Fund will provide an important jumping-off point for the research ambitions of Brains Unlimited. The donation reflects the University Fund’s confidence in the project and serves as an important structural step for both the research to be carried out and the related education. This research will also help to further anchor the sustainable role of UM in the region. Brain research The Maastricht Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging research group, part of the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, enjoys worldwide renown in the field of brain imaging. This is at least partly the result of its success in landing several important international grants. Thus, the expectations are extremely high when it comes to the opportunities offered by these unique scanners in the new laboratory. Starting in 2013, these devices will be used to conduct fundamental and applied research that will allow us to delve deeper into the human brain than ever before. This research should lead to new in-
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sights into brain-related diseases and human behaviour. Health Campus That Brains Unlimited will be vital to the image of the Maastricht Health Campus certainly contributed to the fund’s decision. In addition to UM and the MUMC+, various companies will also be using the laboratory. There are high hopes that the associated spinoff activities will generate new employment opportunities in the region. The Limburg University Fund has long supported UM in its research and education ambitions, with a view to further strengthening the university
MRI training
that is so important for Limburg too. For decades, this fund has been backed by Limburg companies, students, alumni, local and regional authorities and private donors. The board – chaired by the Governor of Limburg, Theo Bovens – hopes the contribution will draw private donors to this exceptional research project, which offers such new and exciting opportunities for the region. Of course, the hope is also to find additional benefactors to support the Brains Unlimited Pioneer Fund. Bovens announced the donation during the annual Maastricht University Dinner held in April.
Maastricht University Dinner 2012: The game is changing!
Feike Sijbesma
The game is changing. This was the theme of the sixth annual Maastricht University Dinner, held on 11 April under the auspices of the Limburg University Fund/SWOL. The guest speaker, CEO of Royal DSM Feike Sijbesma, described with passion and humour the global setting in which the interplay between the business world, the university and the government takes place. In a rapidly changing world, this interplay is also changing. Sijbesma emphasised the absolute necessity of sustainable thinking by all parties, as well as the importance of cooperation between the business sector and academia. He also called for the university to adopt social responsibility as a third core task, alongside education and research.
The 185 guests can look back on a successful evening. Like last year, the dinner was held in the banquet hall of the provincial government building in Maastricht. The aim of the event is to connect representatives of companies and institutions, academics, UM alumni and administrators in order to strengthen the Maastricht University network. Attention is also paid to innovation, knowledge valorisation and fundraising. The 26 participating businesses and institutions were able to gain new ideas and interesting contacts. All proceeds of the Maastricht University Dinner 2012 will go to the University Fund, to help support UM in its educational and research projects.
Academy meets Friends The first Academy meets Friends was held on Thursday 8 March 2012. Loyal relations of the Limburg University Fund/SWOL were given a behind-the-scenes look at the Virtual Reality Lab of the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, which plays an important role in various behavioural studies. After the welcome address, the
spotlight was turned on a particular field: the psychology of eating. A demonstration based on current research projects was also given, and the successful meeting came to a close with a few drinks. This was the first in a series of special events for invited relations of the
Limburg University Fund/SWOL. The aim is to give a select group of sponsors, contributors and other important relations of the University Fund and UM the unique opportunity to witness the research and education on offer at UM. The next Academy meets Friends is planned for October 2012.
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New, improved alternative to light anaesthetic for sick children Children who have to undergo testing or unpleasant treatment in hospital are often given a light anaesthetic to help keep them calm. The medical term for this type of light anaesthetic (known in Dutch as het roesje) is procedural sedation and/or analgesia (PSA). Now, PhD research from Maastricht University reveals that this can be both unsafe and ineffective, making medical procedures fail unnecessarily or cause discomfort for the child. A large majority of Dutch paediatricians fear the complications involved in administering light anaesthetics. And rightly so: in recent years the practice has led to the death of two children. In his PhD dissertation at the Maastricht University Medical Centre +, paediatric intensivist Piet Leroy has not only mapped these problems, but also
developed new guidelines with his colleagues that are now recognised as the national standard in the Netherlands. At present, PSA in children is typically performed by doctors who are not specially trained for the procedure. This can, naturally, lead to dangerous
situations. Administering a light anaesthetic causes the patient’s consciousness to drop, sometimes to the level of a general anaesthetic, which can endanger the child’s breathing without the doctor realising in time. A general anaesthetic is often a safer and more effective alternative, but given the lack of anaesthesiologists and suitable rooms for administering general anaesthetics, this does not provide an immediate solution.
A major consequence of the new guidelines is the practical training of PSA specialists (a new type of nurse specialist) who will be able to perform deep sedation in children and adults using methods traditionally restricted to anaesthesiologists. Nurse specialists work independently, but under the supervision of medical specialists.
Hylke Dijkstra wins Von der Gablentz prize This year’s Otto von der Gablentz Academic Prize went to Dr Hylke Dijkstra of Maastricht University. He received the award for his dissertation, “The Role of the Council Secretariat and the European Commission in EU Foreign Policy”, which he defended cum laude in 2011. In this study, he sheds light on the institutional development and daily practice of foreign policy cooperation in the European Union. Dijkstra received the award in The Hague during a ceremony presided over by former prime minister Wim Kok. The award was presented by Ben Knapen, the Dutch Minister for European Affairs and International Cooperation. During the same ceremony the President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy, also received an award for his contribution to European politics.
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Hylke Dijstra, Wim Kok and Ton Nijhuis
Content
Further 04 Leading in Learning - Neuroeconomics: Paving the way for interdisciplinary research programmes 06 The first in-vitro hamburger - Mark Post: The need for meat
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Corine de Ruiter
Robert M. was arrested in Amsterdam as a suspect in what has become the biggest case of child sex abuse in our country. Serious crimes like these shock the public and call for an explanation. At Maastricht University, professor of Forensic Psychology Corine de Ruiter is looking for that explanation.
08 Farewell interview - Gerard Mols: “I’m not attached to power” 14 Professor–Student - Louis Berkvens and Hans van Hall: Eijsden in the Late Middle Ages 18 International - Geraldine van Kasteren: Maastricht University can make a difference in Yemen 20 Debate - Sjaak Koenis and Lies Wesseling: Debate on anger, emancipation and the PVV 24 European Eye Centre - Fred Hendrikse: From jungle outpost to top clinical eye care 26 Off the job - Angelique Hollands: “When I play, I forget everything else” 28 Research in Limburg - Leonie Cornips: A plea for multilingualism
32 Alumnus Louis Delahaije
Louis Delahaije went from being an athlete who did some research to a researcher of athletes. He studied Human Movement Sciences, where he could experiment to his heart’s content, coached the national triathlon team, and is now a trainer-coach for the Rabobank cycling team.
30 PhD research - Cecile aan de Stegge: A history of the Dutch psychiatric nursing tradition 34 Alumni - Bert Fastré: “Maastricht has great extras” 36 University Fund - Brains Unlimited grant - Maastricht University Dinner 2012 - Academy meets Friends News 11, 16, 17, 23 and 38
Profile Education 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, incl. Globalisation and Development • Arts, Media and Culture Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences • School for Nutrition, Toxicology and 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) Faculty of Humanities and Sciences • Department of Knowledge Engineering • International Centre for Integrated assessment and Sustainable development (ICIS) • Maastricht Graduate School of Governance (MGSoG) • University College Maastricht • Teachers Academy • Maastricht Science College 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)
Colophon • Maastricht European Private Law Institute (MEPLI) • The Maastricht Forensic Institute (tMFI)
Publisher: © Maastricht University Editor-in-Chief: Jeanine Gregersen General Editor: Annelotte Huiskes Editorial Board: Gerard Mols (President),
• Maastricht Graduate School of Law
Marja van Dieijen-Visser, Arvid Hoffmann,
• Montesquieu Institute Maastricht
Jos Kievits, Victor Mostart, Madelon Peters,
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)
Hildegard Schneider, Annemie Schols, Sophie Vanhoonacker. Texts: Jos Cortenraad, Annelotte Huiskes, Margot Krijnen, Jos Kievits, Loek Kusiak, Jolien Linssen, Hanna McLean, Graziella Runchina, Hans van Vinkeveen. Photography: Peter van Beek (p 38), Bert Fastré (p 36,37), Collectie Dimence, locatie Brinkgreven (p 30), Guy van Grinsven (p 24,25), Harry Heuts (p 16), Istockphoto (p 16,17,20,23), Foto Kaldenbach Simpelveld.Bouwens-Meurers v.o.f. (p 27), Herman van Ommen (p 36), Sacha Ruland (Cover, p 4,6,8,10, 12,14,28,31), Cor Vos (p 32, 33), Jonathan Vos (p 9,16),
School of Business and Economics
Moniek Wegdam (p 21,22), Pepijn Zoon (p 26)
• Maastricht Research School of
Translations and English editing:
Economics of Technology and
Alison Edwards
Organisations (METEOR)
Graphic concept:
• Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA), Foundation • United Nations University –
Vormgeversassociatie BV, Hoog-Keppel Graphic design: Grafisch Ontwerpbureau Emilio Perez, Geleen
Maastricht Economic Research Insti-
Print:
tute on Innovation and Technology
Pietermans Drukkerij, Lanaken (B)
(UNU-MERIT), Foundation • Limburg Institute of Financial Economics (LIFE) • The Maastricht Academic Centre for
Maastricht University magazine is published in February, June and October. It is sent on demand to UM alumni and to external relations.
Research in Services (MAXX) • Accounting, Auditing & Information Management Research Centre (MARC) • European Centre for Corporate Engagement (ECCE) • Social Innovation for Competitiveness,
Editorial Office: Marketing & Communications Postbus 616, 6200 MD Maastricht T +31 43 388 5238 / +31 43 388 5222 E annelotte.huiskes@maastrichtuniversity.nl webmagazine.maastrichtuniversity.nl
Organisational Performance and human
Cover: Rector Magnificus Gerard Mols With thanks to Jean-Pierre Pilet
• Maastricht Centre for European Law (MCEL)
ISSN: 2210-5212
• Maastricht Centre for Human Rights • Maastricht Centre for Taxation (MCT)
webmagazine.maastrichtuniversity.nl
magazine 02/June 2012
Based in Europe, focused on the world. Maastricht University is a stimulating environment. Where research and teaching are complementary. Where innovation is our focus. Where talent can flourish. A truly student oriented research university.
www.maastrichtuniversity.nl
About education and research at Maastricht University
“I’m not attached
to power” Farewell interview with rector magnificus Gerard Mols - p 8
The first in-vitro
hamburger Mark Post on the need for meat - p 6
Sjaak Koenis and Lies Wesseling
debate on anger, emancipation and the PVV - p 20