UM Magazine October 2017

October 2017 on education and research at Maastricht University

More fun in the legal

classroom

Innovative education using simulations, virtual worlds and holograms

The musical, athletic psychologist

----p4 May the best (wo)man win Isabella Grabner on diversity policy ----p7

Portrait of new KNAW member Anita Jansen ----p12

28 Professor - student Melissa Siegel and Brenda Yamba: Positive view of the future prevents school dropout -----

/ Leading the way in fundamental social change /

30 Valorisation

Henry Theunissen and Ivo George: What can you do with basic research?

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33 Off the job

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John Dumoulin: My hobby is my work ----She is a physician, PhD student, one of the United Nations’ 17 Global Sustainable Development Goals Advocates and the UN High-Level Commissioner on Health Employment and Economic Growth. But above all, Alaa Murabit (27) defines herself as a leader. On 4 September she gave the keynote speech at the opening of the academic year 2017/18 in Maastricht.

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Naturalisation and the integration of immigrants ----p24

38 Alumni

/ Brightlands and Maastricht University: creating a strong region / Maastricht University Executive Board Martin Paul, Rianne Letschert and Nick Bos

Eloise le Conge Kleyn: From Rotterdam to Dubai, via Maastricht -----

In recent years Maastricht University has been expanding in the areas of education, research and valorisation. A key part of this expansion took place on the four Brightlands campuses, where the university is closely involved in a ‘triple helix’ with the business sector as well as provincial and local authorities.

40 University Fund

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Further

News -----

10, 11, 27 and 42 News

04 Innovative learning

The Brightlands Chemelot Campus, for instance, has much to offer to the successful Maastricht Science Programme, with its expected intake of more than 125 first-year students. Students follow lessons not only in Maastricht but also on the Sittard/Geleen campus, where they have access to research laboratories and can come into contact with potential employers.

Through cooperation with companies on and near the campus, research projects are being developed that are of interest to both students and researchers. In addition, learning-teaching trajectories have been created at Chemelot in collaboration with institutes for professional (HBO) and vocational (MBO) education.

Bram Akkermans, Catalina Goanta and Gwen Noteborn: Fun in the legal classroom -----

07 Research and society

October 2017 on education and research at Maastricht University

Isabella Grabner: May the best (wo)man win -----

12 Portrait

It takes five years of uninterrupted stay in the Netherlands for a foreigner to become a Dutch citizen through naturalisation.

According to some political parties, this is too short a period to become a full member of society. The government now plans to increase the minimum residence requirement to seven years. Maarten Vink, professor of Political Science at Maastricht University, is against the proposal. “It’s not based on any scientific evidence.”

Anita Jansen: The musical, athletic psychologist -----

19 Euregion

Law students employed as neighbourhood mediators -----

22 Spread

UCM graduation on the legendary stage of André Rieu at the Vrijthof in Maastricht.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Jan van Manen held many positions during his four decades in the police force. Now, as a member of the National Video Reconstruction Team and the Disaster Victim Identification Team, he still works the occasional 60 hour week. But this didn’t stop him from starting, at the ripe age of 55, the Master in Forensics, Criminology and Law at Maastricht University (UM). His next goal: to obtain his PhD on the role of video reconstruction in criminal procedure. “I want to keep on learning and working for as long as possible.”

2 UMagazine / October February2017 2017

Alum Jan van Manen

More fun in the legal

classroom

Innovative education using simulations, virtual worlds and holograms

The musical, athletic psychologist

----p4 May the best (wo)man win

On the Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus, the MERLN and M4I research institutes have already built up outstanding reputations. Together they have given

Portrait of new KNAW member Anita Jansen ----p12

Isabella Grabner on diversity policy ----p7

Photo Sacha Ruland

Cover Hugo Thomassen Talented photographers were asked to come up with an image relating to one of our cover stories. Hugo Thomassen studied photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht. He has been working as an independent photographer since 2001, specialising in fashion photography and portraits of well-known (and unknown) Dutch people. “For me, photography is about bringing together light and shadow.”

a new impetus to regenerative medicine and boosted our research capacity in imaging and precision medicine. These institutes are closely involved in cross-border developments such as RegMedXB, an international consortium for regenerative research, and Imaging Valley, an umbrella concept encompassing an impressive collection of imaging facilities.

On the Brightlands Smart Services Campus in Heerlen, the Business Intelligence and Smart Services (BISS) research institute is working on scientific innovations together with Zuyd University of Applied Sciences and the Open University. A BISS master’s programme was also recently launched.

Finally, the distinctive character of the Venlo region (also known as Greenport) is reflected on the Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo. Education and research here focus on health and healthy nutrition, including the newly established University College Venlo and the research lines in Healthy Eating and Food Innovation (HEFI).

The profile of Maastricht University has enjoyed a major boost thanks to the cooperation on these campuses with, and joint investments by, the provincial government and the business sector. But this is by no means the only driving force behind Brightlands. Students and PhD candidates benefit from being trained in close proximity to companies and institutions: they can explore their options and enhance their employability, including at companies in our own region. Dutch and European governments are earmarking increasing portions of their research funds for consortia that bring academic institutions together with the business sector; in this respect, Maastricht researchers who collaborate closely with companies have a clear head start. Further, the state-of-the-art facilities housed on the campuses foster entrepreneurship and knowledge-intensive commercial activity.

Investing in this knowledge infrastructure means an upgrade for the economic foundations of the region, but also a leg up for its self-image. Limburg is stronger because of it. What’s more, the Brightlands concept enhances our appeal and our reach across borders, both within the Euregion and across Europe. Maastricht University, an institution that prides itself on being firmly anchored in its region, can only benefit from having a strong surrounding environment. <<

www.hugothomassen.eu

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3 October 2017 / UMagazine

/ More fun in the legal classroom /

Innovative learning

Text Hans van Vinkeveen Photography Hugo Thomassen

The work lawyers do, the way they do it – indeed, the entire labour market – is changing radically.

This calls for new, ‘soft’ skills, which in turn requires an education revolution. And to this end innovative technology can make an important contribution, according to Bram Akkermans, Catalina Goanta and Gwen Noteborn from Maastricht University’s Faculty of Law. They are integrating simulations, virtual worlds and holograms into their teaching. “Innovative education is in our DNA.”

Technology is taking over the legal classroom.

During a lesson on negotiating, students wear a futuristic pair of glasses: Google Glass, a type of wearable technology that provides audiovisual information to the wearer. The students are tasked with resolving a conflict between two parties. If they need help, the tutor can send them a ‘secret message’ via the glasses: “put yourself in their shoes”, for example, or “try to be less aggressive”. This way, students can put the feedback into practice immediately.

Law is not a discipline you immediately associate with an innovative multimedia environment, admits Akkermans, associate professor of European Private Law. “There’s this idea that it’s a bit behind the times, the image of dusty books and so forth.” So he and his colleagues, education researcher Gwen Noteborn and assistant professor of Private Law Catalina Goanta, developed and launched a number of innovative 4 UMagazine / October 2017

projects. In ‘Implementing Wearables in the Classroom’, wearable technologies are used to incorporate simulation into the lessons. And through The SkillsChannel, the faculty’s own YouTube channel, education and training are delivered by means of vlogs.

Akkermans: “Innovative education is in our DNA.”

Tech literate

Society is changing, and so is the legal profession.

If you want to draw up a will, just pop into HEMA. For legal questions there are websites like vraaghugo.nl, and if you find yourself involved in a legal dispute, there’s no need to go to court – you can opt for mediation instead. According to the three we are on the eve of a revolution in education, where the focus will be on learning what they call ‘soft skills’ or procedural knowledge: listening, negotiating and mediating.

These are the skills of the 21st century, and there is already increasing demand for them on the labour market. >>

Assistant professor of Private Law Catalina Goanta / Associate professor of European Private Law Bram Akkermans / Education researcher Gwen Noteborn

5 October 2017 / UMagazine

Bram Akkermans (1979) is associate professor of European Private Law, coordinator of the bachelor’s in European Law School and associate director of the Maastricht European Private Law Institute.

Catalina Goanta (1986) is assistant professor of Private Law. Her current research focuses on law and technology for the Maastricht European Private Law Institute and the Stanford Transatlantic Technology Law Forum.

She was awarded the Wynand Wijnen Education Prize 2015 for her innovative teaching methods.

the lecturers plan to experiment with Microsoft HoloLens, a pair of glasses that lets wearers see holograms. “That way you can make it look like there’s a judge in the classroom.”

Gwen Noteborn (1984) is an education researcher at the Faculty of Law and the School of Business and Economics.

She has been advocating the use of emerging technologies in the classroom for the last decade. Her research has appeared in top international journals, and her work on virtual worlds and video classes received the Wynand Wijnen Education Prize 2008 and 2013. She will soon defend her PhD, entitled ‘Education revolution’.

Low-threshold technology

The university is, in their view, not fully reaping the benefits of new technologies. Goanta: “It’s a cliché perhaps, because it was already true twenty years ago, but there’s a massive gap between what you learn at university and what’s expected of you in practice.”

They began tentatively experimenting with wearables at the law faculty two years ago. “Many people are scared of new technology, but that’s okay. You can take a low-threshold approach, like using Facebook in mediation. What we do isn’t for everyone, but it demonstrates the potential of technology in education.”

Emerging technologies, Noteborn’s research has shown, offer a toolkit for practising such procedural skills in a real-life context. This approach has a number of advantages. “It allows us to provide individual education even though there is less and less money for ever more students”, Goanta says. But perhaps the biggest benefit lies in making students ‘tech literate’: “Being able to work with new technology is crucial in today’s workplace, and leads to greater employability.”

Fun factor

In her PhD dissertation ‘Education revolution’, Noteborn also shows the importance of the ‘fun factor’ of these new technologies. When students enjoy learning, they do better. “Students get a kick out of the use of technologies like Google Glass. This makes them more engaged, so they work harder, which results in less stress at exam time and better study results.

Modern devices are fun; poring over a book puts you to sleep. The more fun students have in class, the better they perform.” Following the success of Google Glass, 6 UMagazine / October 2017

Classroom of the future

For future lecturers, new technologies offer abundant opportunities. “Teaching will become more personalised”, Noteborn says. “For example, you can use wearables to measure biomedical data like blood pressure and heartbeat. That way you can see if a student arguing a case is suffering from stress, so you can reassure him, reduce the fear, and see immediately via biomedical feedback whether this is helping. The new technologies also enable lecturers to tap into students’ motivation and specific competences or shortcomings. Take smartwatches: they can tell you when a student needs to make more eye contact with the judge or draw his attention to a certain article of law.” Akkermans: “The classroom of the future will be more virtual. This can contribute to the Maastricht University ‘style’, with close relationships in small groups.” But, he says, the physical classroom will not disappear. “The on-campus experience, meeting in person and doing things together, will always be there.” <<

Research and society

/ May the best (wo)man win / Associate professor of Accounting Isabella Grabner 7 October 2017 / UMagazine

Text Femke Kools Photography Arjen Schmitz

Should the people who run the fastest at work be the ones to get promoted first? Or should it be those with the most potential? How can organisations persuade talented women to stick around, instead of watching one after the other walk out the door? Isabella Grabner believes that the way performance is measured makes a huge difference on the work floor. “And that’s the hopeful part, since this is something firms can fix themselves.”

‘Performance measurement’ is a well-known term in organisations. Less well known is the fact that how you measure performance makes a big difference, not only to the outcome of the evaluation, but also to a woman’s chances of getting a promotion – or even her willingness to strive for one. Isabella Grabner has conducted groundbreaking research in this field. Now she is starting a new project, supported by a €200,000 grant from the Dutch Foundation for Auditing Research. The foundation is also giving Grabner access to the personnel database of the nine largest Dutch accounting firms. “Normally it’s almost impossible to get that”, she says. This will enable her and her team to analyse the career paths of all employees over a long period of time. “So we’re about to see if it’s true that talented people leave, and if so, were they passed over for a promotion in the past?”

Peter Principle

In previous research Grabner has shown that you can avoid promoting people to their level of incompetence (the ‘Peter Principle’) if you not only rely on current job performance, but also take potential into account. Further, people’s intuition as to whether someone deserves a promotion leads to better decisions than formal, paper-based evaluations.

8 UMagazine / October 2017

Isabella Grabner (1982) is associate professor of

“So trying to formalise things is not necessarily better if you want to avoid the Peter Principle.”

If the wrong people sometimes get promoted, it stands to reason that the good ones are sometimes passed over. “And I have a strong feeling that women are more likely to be passed over for promotion than men. Women dropping out of the workforce, which is one of the biggest problems for accounting firms, is what we call the ‘leaking pipeline’. And it’s not only happening at firms, but at other places too, like universities.” She gives the example of her own faculty, the School of Business and Economics. At PhD level, the ratio of women to men is 50:50. At the next rung on the ladder, assistant professor, it’s 20:80. “From a university perspective, we’re wasting our talent. If we want to hire the best people, half our assistant professors should be women.”

Implicit bias

The main bottleneck for women in academia, Grabner believes, is the way performance is measured on the tenure track. But the problem is not confined to academia. “The evaluation systems used in promotion decisions were designed many years ago, when women didn’t make up half of the workforce. They

There’s an implicit bias in society.

were designed by men to distinguish between good and bad … men. They need to be adapted to keep pace with reality.” What’s more, women are constantly being evaluated with male criteria. Research shows that this is not always intentional. In one study, students were asked to evaluate an email response from a teacher. When they thought the teacher was male, they rated the answer as ‘excellent and in time’.

When they thought the teacher was female, they found it ‘good but too late’. “So there’s an implicit bias in society. But if we know that, we can incorporate it into our performance measurement systems. And not base promotion decisions in academia on ‘objective’ teaching evaluations, because they’re biased!”

All-male PhD committee

When speaking about this topic, Grabner’s eyes tend to light up. She is determined to bring about evidence-based change in this area. Together with her students, she recently developed the rating methodology and conducted desk research for the global report on gender equality by Equileap, an NGO seeking to accelerate progress towards gender equality in the workplace. This is important because, as research shows, gender-diverse companies tend to produce higher financial returns and have lower risk. Equileap

Accounting at the Maastricht University School of Business and Economics. She moved to Maastricht University in 2010 after receiving her PhD from Vienna University of Economics and Business. She has been the director of master’s programmes at SBE since 2015 and is a member of the newly established UM Advisory Council on Diversity.

argues that equal pay and, more broadly, equal opportunities at work are powerful levers to enhance global prosperity.

Grabner has also been asked to help advise the Executive Board on how to increase diversity and inclusion at Maastricht University. “We want to be a university that has room for everybody. And frankly, at the moment the key positions are dominated by white, grey-haired Dutch men.” To change this, she says, awareness is the first step. “Nowadays I’ll hear people say, ‘Did you see? The committee for that PhD defence was all male!’ And women have to be more aware of their own potential and lift each other up. Most of my PhD students are female and I make sure half of their defence committee is made up of women, even if I have to fly a professor over from America. Women have to be good role models.” << 9 October 2017 / UMagazine

BONE: A European project eliminating the need for repeat surgeries

News Opening of the academic year 2017/18

On Monday 4 September 2017, Maastricht University celebrated the official opening of the academic year 2017/18. This year’s theme was ‘Can academics change the world?’ The keynote speech was delivered by Dr Alaa Murabit, a Libyan-Canadian physician and United Nations Global Sustainable Development Goals Advocate and High-Level Commissioner on Health Employment & Economic Growth (interview on page 16). Further, three UM initiatives were presented that have a regional/ national, European or global impact.

Action research contest

The morning symposium revolved around ‘action research’. Three master’s students and three PhD candidates (all women) presented their ideas for a project involving academic entrepreneurship. All six, in the words of UM president Martin Paul, ‘demonstrated compassion for the target group and thus illustrated the engagement of UM students’. The winners were Nrupaja Bhide, master’s student of Public Policy and Human Development, and PhD candidate Marieke Hopman, who is working on her dissertation ‘Looking at law through children’s eyes’.

10 UMagazine / October February2017 2017

Student Award

This year seven students were nominated for the UM Student Award for their important contributions to society or culture.

The winner was sixth-year medical student Victoria von Salmuth. During her internship in 2015 at the Shirati hospital in Tanzania, she met a young woman who was struggling to breastfeed her newborn triplets because she herself had too little to eat. Von Salmuth initiated the Shirati Food Programme, which sends the hospital €600 in donations per month.

Edmond Hustinx Prize for Science

This prize underlines the importance of science as well as the education provided by UM for the benefit of South Limburg society.

The award, worth some €15,000, went this year to Sanne ten Oever. She obtained her PhD cum laude at UM and now works in the cognitive neuroscience research group led by Professor Alexander Sack. After graduating she acquired, entirely on her own steam, an NWO Top Talent grant for her research agenda ‘Brain rhythms and multisensory perception: Unravelling the basis of fundamental brain oscillations’. Because she is currently on a work trip in Finland, her partner Mehrdad Seirafi accepted the prize in her absence. <<

A transnational consortium led by Maastricht University will spend the next four years developing innovative bone implants. Thanks to these implants, patients with complex bone fractures will be able to avoid repeat surgeries, prolonged medication use and donor tissue implementation. The BONE (Biofabrication of Orthopaedics in a New Era) partnership will also give the participating regions a significant economic boost.

Research has shown that people from northwestern Europe are more likely to develop degenerative bone disorders than their EU counterparts. As a result, this region has the highest number of bone fractures and bone defects in Europe, which has clear social and economic consequences.

Researchers in the field of regenerative medicine have been working hard to create innovative bone implants that can improve recovery times and reduce healthcare costs.

This international partnership involves, besides UM, the universities of Leuven (Belgium) and Lille (France), the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology in Aachen (Germany) and Medicen Paris Region (a leading biomedical cluster in France), as well as the technology companies The Electrospinning Company (UK), NKT Photonics (international) and Spraybase® (Ireland).

Over the next four years, the partners will work together to develop the technology needed to produce these implants. <<

Jan Smits appointed dean of Faculty of Law

Jan Smits will succeed Professor Hildegard Schneider as dean of the Faculty of Law on 1 December 2017. To ensure that the handover runs smoothly, Smits started as vice dean on 1 September.

The new dean has been a visiting scholar at various foreign institutes, including Tulane University Law School, the University of Leuven, the University of Liège, Louisiana State University, Penn State Dickinson School of Law and the University of Helsinki. From 2010 to 2012 he served as Hill Visiting Chair on the Internationalisation of Law and from 2013 to 2014 as Rotating Chair at Ghent University. Smits is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), chair of the KNAW Law Department, a titular member of the International Academy of Comparative Law (AIDC) and a deputy judge at the Amsterdam Court of Appeal. He has also held various administrative positions at UM.

Hildegard Schneider has served as dean since 1 September 2011 with success, dedication and enthusiasm. Under her leadership, the faculty has made great strides both financially and substantively. Various interdisciplinary initiatives and institutes at UM and beyond were shaped on her watch, including MACIMDE, ITEM and MACCH. Schneider will continue to play an important role at these institutes as well as in the further strategic development of the Brussels Campus and other international activities. <<

Kiran Klaus Patel wins prestigious Bentley Book Prize Kiran Klaus Patel’s The New Deal: A Global History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016) has won the Bentley Book Prize 2017. Awarded by the World History Association, this prize recognises outstanding contributions to the field of world history. Patel is the Jean Monnet Professor of

European and Global History at Maastricht University The New Deal: A Global History offers a radically new interpretation of a pivotal period in US history. The first comprehensive study of the New Deal in a global context, the book compares American responses to the international crisis of capitalism and democracy during the 1930s to responses by countries around the globe, not just in Europe but also in Latin America, Asia and other parts of the world. Work creation, agricultural intervention, state planning, immigration policy, the role of mass media, forms of political leadership and new ways of ruling America’s colonies – all had parallels elsewhere and unfolded against a backdrop of intense global debates. <<

11 February October 2017 / UMagazine

One thing is clear after our in-depth interview: if it wasn’t academia, she could easily have had a successful career in music or sport. Fun and substance are the two words she uses most – the guiding principles behind all her choices. She’s never been into career planning. This year Anita Jansen, professor of Experimental Clinical Psychology and dean of the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, was made a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

“Of course I’m happy with the appointment – it’s a huge honour – but personally I’m not that interested in titles and hierarchy. For me it’s about the substance of the work. It surprises me how strategic young academics are these days. Everything revolves around ‘how can I be made professor?’ and they come to me to ‘network’. While I’m thinking, where’s the fun in your research? No doubt it’s because they’re under greater pressure to perform. But when I started in experimental psychopathology here in the mid-1980s, we talked about nothing but our research; during the day at work and in the evening at the pub. We were young pups, constantly coming up with experiments.” During lunch she and a colleague gave concerts. “We used to play Bach, he on the guitar, me on the violin. As dean, I try to recreate that atmosphere in the faculty.

Our board has a monthly lunch with the assistant professors to find out how they’re doing. What’s going well, what isn’t and what needs to change. But I want to involve the support staff as well. We’ve started an academy for them where our scientists present their research, so that the support staff – who work hard for the research and teaching too – know what they’re doing it for”, she explains enthusiastically. “I want to return to our core tasks: doing top research and giving students a great education.”

Text Annelotte Huiskes Photography Philip Driessen 12 UMagazine / October 2017

Portrait

Professor of Experimental Clinical Psychology and dean of the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience Anita Jansen

It’s all fun

Jansen does not come from an academic environment. Born and raised in Utrecht, she is the middle child in a Catholic family with five children. “My father laid communication cables in the street and later worked his way up to be an office clerk at the PTT [a former state utilities company]. My mother was a housewife who looked after the children. I had a great childhood. I enjoyed lots of things: I liked playing football with my younger brother, but I also played with dolls and read books. As a teenager I was very left wing and critical. I worked on the school newspaper, had leftie friends with long hair, and of course that sometimes made for conflict at home. But like my father, I loved music. His family was very musical.

There was no money for instruments, but it was free to sing in a choir, so many of his brothers and sisters did that. I was keen to play the piano and violin, but our house was small and had very thin walls, so I was given an organ with headphones for my 15th birthday.

Not exactly what I wanted, but at least I could play.

When I was 16 I used my savings to buy my first violin for 100 guilders from a Chinese shop. It sounded awful of course. When my parents saw that I was serious, they bought me a better violin. I learnt fast and was admitted two years later to the preparatory year of >>

/ The musical, athletic psychologist / 13 October 2017 / UMagazine

Tough

My strength is that I can strip things back to their core.

the Utrecht Cangeroes in the highest amateur division.

“I shared a house with some of my teammates, and made friends for life.”

The most fun

In 1984 Jansen started an internship in Maastricht, intrigued by the research being done on anorexia. “I found anorexia extremely interesting. It was a hot topic back then, all over the pages of women’s magazines.

And the main expert was based here.” During this first internship in clinical psychology she was captivated by the innovative experimental research on behavioural disorders. Never one to stay on the beaten track, she stuck around to do another internship and give her own twist to her final year. “Because clinical psychology in those days was too soft for my liking, and didn’t involve much research, I wanted to combine two specialisations, physiological and clinical psychology. The Exam Board gave me the green light. That combination of biology and psychology, body and mind, that’s what I find really interesting.” the conservatory. But I was too far behind the other students, who had often played from a very young age.

So I decided to study psychology and quickly discovered that I really enjoyed doing research.”

As if that weren’t enough, Jansen is also a keen and talented athlete. Football was her first love. “When I watched our women during the European Championship, I thought, oh, I would have liked that. I played a lot of street football with the boys, but my parents wouldn’t let me join a club because they didn’t think it was right for girls.” Next she tried her hand at tennis.

“I played for one year and became the club champion.

I was just fit and could hit the ball hard. But I was kind of the odd one out, because I played in shorts instead of the required skirt. Then I discovered basketball, and that I really liked.” Despite starting this, too, at a relatively late age, she was soon invited to play with 14 UMagazine / October 2017

On graduating she was immediately offered a lectureship in Maastricht. Here too she went her own way, pioneering the use of experimental research methods to study eating disorders. “In experimental research you try to study causality in a laboratory setting. For example: if I make people sad, do they go and eat more?” And so began her groundbreaking research on eating disorders, for which she was awarded a Vici grant in 2011. She and her team discovered, among other things, that eating behaviour is largely learned and that people with eating disorders have a more realistic body image than healthy people. “My strength is that I can strip things back to their core and I’m creative, so they say. I have lots of ideas and I’m good at coming up with nice, simple experiments. Also, I enjoy writing nice pieces to try to persuade people of my ideas – that’s important too.”

The research may have been fun, but the initial transition from Utrecht to Maastricht was rocky. “Let’s just say it was a culture shock. In those days I still looked like a bit of a punk. People would stare at me on the street, and when the Pope came to visit the police picked me up because they thought I looked shady”, she laughs. She hadn’t lived in Maastricht long when both her parents passed away within six months of each other. Her father, 53, died of skin cancer, and her mother suffered a heart attack at 57. “It was a tough time. My father was already seriously ill when I came to Maastricht. For me that was an argument against leaving, but he wouldn’t hear of it. At home we never talked much about feelings, it was more ‘don’t whinge, just get on with it’. That’s why he went to the doctor about a melanoma too late. My mother’s death was completely unexpected. There you are, 25 years old, having to deal with things that never crossed your mind.”

Anita Jansen (1961) is professor of Experimental Clinical Psychology and dean of the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience. She studies eating behaviour, eating disorders and obesity: from brain activity and cognitive processes to behavioural patterns and treatment. Her iBook Learning not to eat: A guide for therapists was published in 2015. She received a Vici grant in 2011 and was appointed a member of the KNAW in 2017.

After ten years in Maastricht she was keen to return to the Randstad. “Louis Boon, the dean in those days, was smart and told me, ‘Go for one year and come back after that.’ And that’s what happened. I went to Amsterdam as a guest researcher and met my husband [Fren Smulders] at the UvA. He was a postdoc involved in EEG. I was keen to come back because I really missed the unique EPP research here, and luckily Fren was able to get a job at the new psychology faculty too. So it was a successful year”, she smiles. Some time out is, in her view, something all researchers should get the chance to enjoy. She took a sabbatical in 2007, spending a year in New Zealand with her husband and their three young children. “We both worked at the University of Otago. I wrote dozens of articles there; it was wonderful. You finally get around to it.”

No end

Now that the children have mostly left home, she has more time for other things. “And that ends up being work again”, she says with a guffaw. She is sorry the Vici grant has come to an end: “There’s nothing nicer than working with such a great team of PhD candidates.” How does she picture her last ten years before retirement? “I want to help change the culture of the faculty. I’d never have thought it, but I really enjoy being dean. And when am I ever going to retire?” <<

15 October 2017 / UMagazine

Text Femke Kools Photography Harry Heuts

Awards

/ Leading the way in fundamental social change /

She is a physician, PhD candidate, one of the United Nations’ 17 Global Sustainable Development Goals Advocates and the UN High-Level Commissioner on Health Employment and Economic Growth. But above all, Alaa Murabit (27) defines herself as a leader.

On 4 September she gave the keynote speech at the opening of the academic year 2017/18 in Maastricht.

It’s the eve of the official ceremony and Murabit has just arrived at her hotel in Maastricht’s city centre.

She flew into Amsterdam Airport Schiphol this afternoon and has been awake for 33 hours, but it doesn’t show. She speaks with the same passion as she did in 2015 in her internationally lauded TED talk, ‘What my religion really says about women’. She has a clear message and is an experienced public speaker. During the interview Murabit tells us about her three goals in life.

“Choosing this path meant I no longer had the time to work as a medical doctor, and I loved that profession.

So I had to define very clearly what I wanted to strive for.”

Three goals

“My first and foremost goal is to live in a world where young girls don’t question their ability to be leaders, and they seek out leadership roles regardless of their location, colour or nationality. My second goal is universal healthcare. This claim that healthcare is not a right – I genuinely think it’s selfish. Finally, to achieve these first two goals – getting more girls and women to be change-makers and business leaders, and gaining universal healthcare and access to reproductive rights – there needs to be unquestionable quality and quantity of education. And I worry that this is the most difficult for us to achieve.” >> 16 UMagazine / October 2017

17 October 2017 / UMagazine

Euregion

sented in the formal working sector and engaged more in informal work. Even when women do work in formal employment, the pay discrepancy is startling. In the US, a ‘mature democracy’, a white woman earns 73 cents for every dollar earned by a man. For black women that drops to 60 cents and for Hispanic women it’s less than 55 cents.”

The Malala Fund

It truly is just a pencil and paper that can transform entire lives.

Education was the central theme of her keynote speech, ‘How pencil and paper lead to peace and prosperity’. Without detracting from the benefits of formal education, she stressed the importance of informal education. “With that I mean the life experience you get from taking a leading role, working with partners or having to wake up early to go to school. Those are all things that prepare you for the world.” Murabit is also a board member of several organisations, including the Malala Fund. “We work in many countries where people don’t have the opportunities you have at places like UM. But even in those communities it truly is just a pencil and paper that can transform entire lives.

Kids can sit outside and still do incredible work. We’re shifting into this new global reality, where people who haven’t had the benefits of a traditional education rise to positions of leadership and authority.”

Mum as role model

“My dad always says, ‘The school doesn’t make the student, the student makes the school’. I learned negotiation skills at home, together with my 10 brothers and sisters. That was a form of education.” After finishing high school in Canada at the age of 15, she moved to Libya, where her parents came from and her mother had been living for a year. Murabit’s mother is her role model. “A lot of people think of a leader as the CEO or the president. But my mum kept a family of 11 operating like clockwork. To me that was leadership.

Also her recognition that every child has different aspirations.”

Growing up, the boys and girls were treated equally.

It was only when she got older and more ambitious that she experienced something different. “Many of the professors in medical school made the assumption that I wouldn’t actually practise medicine. That was frustrating, but in retrospect I don’t think there’s a single country where gender discrimination is not an issue. In most of the world women are underrepre-

18 UMagazine / October 2017

Surveys show that putting women at the table, in boardrooms but also in peace negotiations, is the key to more sustainable solutions. “Girls’ education and women’s reproductive rights are the number one practical solution to climate change, as Paul Hawken showed in his impressive study on climate change, ‘Drawdown’. We invest so much money in processes that are failing, we know why they’re failing, we know how to stop them from failing, and we just don’t. Policies fail when they are not inclusive. With only men at the table we will only keep repeating past mistakes.”

Lesson learned

/ Law students employed as neighbourhood mediators /

Murabit has learned that change will take time.

“I once had an interesting conversation with my extended family in Libya. One of the women felt very insulted by what I was saying about gender equality.

She said: ‘You’re saying the way I was raised and how I’ve raised my daughters is wrong’. I think that’s when I realised. When you ask people to make fundamental social changes, you’re challenging everything they believe in, and that’s hard.” Coming from a scientific background, she figured that if you show people the numbers, they will understand. “That’s how you convince me. If you show me legitimate numbers I’m pretty easily persuaded, and I just assumed everybody else would be the same. They’re not. If we want to succeed, if we want a prosperous, peaceful planet, then we need to listen to one another – and get more seats at the table.” <<

Master’s student in Dutch Law Roos van den Bekerom / Bachelor’s student in European Law Dünya Gezgin

19 October 2017 / UMagazine February

Text Meyke Houben Photography Sacha Ruland

Councillor Jack Gerats awarded the first certificates to 18 new youth neighbourhood mediators.

Maastricht is the first city in the Netherlands where students go into neighbourhoods as youth neighbourhood mediators to bring students and local residents closer together.

Two of them discuss their motivations.

<<

Roos van den Bekerom (1992) is a master’s student in Dutch Law, specialising in Private Law. She has been living in Maastricht since 2011 and has been an active member of student association KoKo, including a year as president in 2014/15.

Since March 2017, she has worked as a youth neighbourhood mediator.

Roos van den Bekerom, a master’s student in Dutch Law, learned about neighbourhood mediation through her internship supervisor. “I didn’t know about it, but it seemed like a nice project. I’d like to contribute to society, and I learn from it as well.” Roos has already had success. “A man in the neighbourhood was having problems with the students living next door. The students called the police because it was difficult to have a conversation with the neighbour. We went with two mediators to speak with both parties, to hear all sides. That led to telephone numbers being mutually exchanged. Now, if friends come to visit, the students let their neighbour know.”

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Dünya Gezgin (1996) a bachelor’s student in European Law School, will start two master’s programmes in September: Criminal Law; and Forensics, Criminology and Law. In addition to her work as a youth neighbourhood mediator, she works as a student buddy and as a student assistant for Hans Nelen, professor of Criminology.

Rhythms of life

In a relatively young student city like Maastricht, the original inhabitants did not grow up with students in their neighbourhood. Dissatisfaction with student behaviour often arises because of their different rhythms of life and a lack of understanding. The use of youth neighbourhood mediators (JBBs) is a good way to prevent escalation, says Roos. “As JBBs, we always go with two people. We’ll steer the conversation some, but we’ll let the parties reach a solution themselves.

It’s nice to see that insight often arises when there’s also room for emotions.”

Dünya Gezgin, a bachelor’s student in European Law School, has experienced that as well. “I live in an apartment complex with students in Scharn. There we’re in our own student bubble; we’re not involved in those issues. To me, it was an eye opener to see what’s happening between students and residents. Since I’m a JBB now, I’m also getting to know the city better. In the Brusselsepoort neighbourhood, I mediated a conflict with a real ‘Maastrichtenaar’, which was very nice.”

Roos and Dünya had good experiences with the twoday training, which was recognised by the Dutch Centre for Crime Prevention and Safety (CCV). “We learned to listen neutrally, without passing judgment”, Dünya explains. “Different discussion techniques were also covered. For example, it’s good to ask for confirmation of what you think the other person is saying and we try to avoid the question of ‘why’.”

Limmel

The majority of the JBBs are law students at Maastricht University. Last year, they were closely involved in bringing residents together with students from the Hotel Management School in Limmel.

By involving the city’s Team Handhaven, the Hotel Management School, student association Amphytrion, the police, social welfare organisation Trajekt and the neighbourhood council, the problems could be adressed. First, information meetings were organised in the evenings for neighbourhood residents as well as for student houses and their homeowners. Then, the mediators spoke with 11 student houses in 20 UMagazine / October 2017

Limmel and 14 complainants. “Three student houses were designated as ‘hot spots’”, says Roos. “We had conversations with students in those houses and their neighbours. Together, we made agreements, which also involved the owners of the student houses. It’s important that they also know what the agreements are and inform new students that come to live there, because students move quite often and newcomers don’t know what’s happened in the past.” For the same reason, there will be follow-ups every six months in Limmel, at the beginning of the academic year and in February to confirm the agreements that were made.

Ignorance

Neighbourhood mediation is part of the Student & Stad project, an initiative of the municipality and Maastricht University, among others. The project aims to improve the relationship between Maastricht residents and students. Therefore, the youth neighbourhood mediation is also affiliated with the Student & Stad project Match, which works to increase the social involvement of students in the city and the surrounding region. Match answers the demand for social

services with the offer from the student community.

This way, Match hopes to show that the city and its residents can benefit from the presence and qualities of the many students in Maastricht.

Because the approach seems to work, the youth neighbourhood mediators also plan to start working with ‘notorious’ student houses in Brusselsepoort-Oost, Belfort, Heer and Centrum. The idea is to move the students towards a mediation conversation with their neighbours. “It works best if you have this type of conversation when it’s quiet, not when there’s a party going on”, explains Dünya. “The nuisance caused by students is rarely due to unwillingness. Much more often, it’s ignorance. And the students are not always the villains; sometimes pre-conceptions and prejudices play a determining role.”

Neighbourhood mediation expands my social world.

Roos and Dünya do not regret their decision to become JBBs. Roos: “As a student, you see that a lot of daily life in Maastricht passes you by. I think it’s good to get in touch with local people in this way, too. Neighbourhood mediation expands my social world.” << 21 October 2017 / UMagazine

Spread

The 24th graduation ceremony of University College Maastricht (UCM) was held on the legendary stage of AndrĂŠ Rieu at the Vrijthof in Maastricht. Some 180 students received their bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degrees that day. UCM, established in 2002, is proud to have a total of 1678 graduates.

Special graduation ceremony Photography Paul van der Veer

22 UMagazine / October 2017

23 October 2017 / UMagazine

Text Jolien Linssen Illustrations Ted Struwer

Discussion

/ A passport is not a panacea*/ *but it can make a big difference in an immigrant’s life

It takes five years of uninterrupted stay in the Netherlands for a foreigner to become a Dutch citizen through naturalisation. According to some political parties, this is too short a period to become a full member of society. The government now plans to increase the minimum residence requirement to seven years. Maarten Vink, professor of Political Science at Maastricht University, is against the proposal. “It’s not based on any scientific evidence.”

In recent years Vink has been studying the citizenship policies of different countries around the world. He discovered that the requirements for naturalisation – minimum length of stay, application fees, knowledge of a country’s language and culture, the need to renounce one’s prior citizenship or not – vary greatly from one country to another. “Immigrants in Belgium and Finland can apply for citizenship after five years of permanent residence, as is currently the case in the Netherlands and in most members of the European Union”, he explains. “In Austria and Spain, this is only possible after ten years.” Another example: whereas the application procedure in Hungary is free, it costs more than €800 per person in the Netherlands.

“Policies differ not only between but also within countries, depending on who is in power”, Vink continues. “Traditionally, parties on the right of the 24 UMagazine / October 2017

political spectrum regard the acquisition of citizenship as a reward for successfully completing the integration process. Leftist parties view it as an incentive to reach this goal. What they have in common is that their ideas about the relationship between naturalisation and integration are based on political assumptions instead of academic research.” This is partly due to a lack of research investigating the specific nature of this relationship – a gap Vink and his team hope to plug with the help of a grant worth nearly €2 million from the European Research Council (ERC). >> 25 October 2017 / UMagazine

naturalisation could help individual immigrants to integrate, by investigating why, how and for whom legal status transitions matter. And how variation in policies between countries affects this relationship.”

Groundbreaking

Prestigious

“Intellectual freedom – that’s what this grant means to me. The ERC has the most prestigious funding scheme in Europe, a Valhalla for researchers.

It gives me the opportunity to hire PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers to do comparative research in six European and two North American countries. Our aim is to really get to the core of the relationship between naturalisation and integration.”

The decision to pursue naturalisation is influenced by many factors: an immigrant’s country of origin, marital status, family situation, educational background and length of stay in the host country. The problem is that these factors may also influence why some immigrants are more or less integrated. It is, in short, difficult to determine what causes what. “Previous research has focused almost entirely on this question of causality and the methodological means to investigate it”, Vink says. While this remains central to his research project Migrant Life Course and Legal Status Transition (MiLifeStatus), the project adds a new theoretical angle.

“What citizenship means for the life of an immigrant depends on who you are. Obtaining a Dutch passport has different implications for a Somali mother than for a German businessman. We ask under which conditions

This calls for an innovative approach known as the life course perspective. Using big data from central population registers and longitudinal surveys, Vink and his team are able to monitor the life course of individual immigrants over a long period of time. The fact that they are doing so in eight countries – the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, Canada, and four Scandinavian countries – adds to the groundbreaking character of the project.

Early results by Vink and colleagues Floris Peters and Hans Schmeets show that naturalisation improves the chances of finding paid employment particularly for immigrants from non-Western, unstable countries who naturalise after five years of residence. If they naturalise later, their chances drop. In other words: the timing of naturalisation matters. Seen in this light, increasing the minimum residence requirement to seven years hardly seems like a good idea.

“I’m not saying that obtaining a passport will solve each and every problem in an immigrant’s life”, Vink says. “But it does give you a secure residence status, as well as certain rights and opportunities to participate in society. What’s more, it encourages a sense of belonging. When properly timed, immigrants can get the most out of it, which is beneficial for them and for society as a whole. Of course I hope that politicians and policymakers will take our findings into account.

This topic is too important to leave up to opinions; we need facts.” << Read more about Maarten Vink’s research project MiLifeStatus at www.milifestatus.com.

Maarten Vink (1975) studied Political Science in Leiden, where he obtained his PhD in 2003. He currently holds the Chair of Political Science with a focus on Political Sociology at Maastricht University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He is co-director of the Maastricht Centre for Citizenship, Migration and Development (MACIMIDE) and the Global Citizenship Observatory (GLOBALCIT).

26 UMagazine / October 2017

News APSA Best Chapter Award for Floris Peters and Maarten Vink

“We are creating the Google Maps of tissue”

Using mass spectrometry imaging (MSI), researchers at UM recently succeeded in visualising dynamic metabolic changes through amino acid conversion in the liver.

This is the first time scientists have been able to identify the dynamics of biochemical processes in human tissue. The research team – headed by Zita Soons and Martijn Arts under the supervision of Ron Heeren (M41) and Steven Olde Damink (Surgery) –

published their findings in the international edition of the prestigious German journal Angewandte Chemie.

MSI is a technique used to create a molecular map of living tissue in a single image.

Researchers use it to determine the precise location of certain molecules and how they are influenced by diseases. “In a sense, we’re creating the Google Maps of tissue”, says Arts. “What makes our research so special is that we’ve developed a method that allows us to visualise molecular changes as they are happening and pinpoint their exact location.

In the future, this will allow us to determine things like how tumour tissue behaves in a patient. This information is important for making diagnoses, but potentially also prognoses.” <<

The migration and citizenship section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) has awarded the 2016 Best Chapter Award to Floris Peters and Maarten Vink.

Their chapter, titled ‘Naturalization and the socio-economic integration of immigrants: A life-course perspective’, was published in the Handbook on Migration and Social Policy, edited by G.P. Freeman and N. Mirilovic (Edward Elgar, 2016).

In the chapter, the authors discuss the literature on immigrant naturalisation and its associated outcomes, and identify substantial empirical ambiguity. The chapter then develops a novel theoretical approach that draws on the sociological life course paradigm, which provides a useful starting point to explain heterogeneous findings in the literature. The chapter received the award for its valuable contribution to the migration and citizenship literature.

A paper published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies in 2016 by Peters and Vink, co-authored with Hans Schmeets, also received an honourable mention for the Best Article Award by a different committee of the APSA migration and citizenship section.

Peters is currently completing his PhD dissertation on immigrant naturalisation and socioeconomic integration. Vink directs the ERC-funded project Migrant Life Course and Legal Status Transitions. (see page 24 for an interview). <<

Six Vidi grants and five Veni grants for talented UM researchers

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) awarded Vidi grants, each worth €800,000, to six experienced Maastricht researchers: Prof.

Pamela Habibovic (FHML/MERLN), Dr Joost Lumens (FHML), Dr Ann Meulders (FPN), Dr Benedikt Poser (FPN), Dr Vera Schrauwen-Hinderling (FHML) and Dr Stephan Smeekes (SBE). The grants will enable them to set up their own research groups and develop innovative lines of research over the course of five years. The NWO awards Vidi grants every year. A total of 590 researchers

submitted a research proposal in this funding round, 89 of whom were awarded grants.

Further, five young UM researchers received Veni grants from the NWO worth up to €250,000 each. Lars Hausfeld and Lotte Lemmens from the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience and Lucas Lindeboom, Veerle Melotte and Paul Wieringa, all from the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, are now set to develop their research agendas over the next three years. Of the 1,127 applications, 154 were selected for funding (a success rate of 14%). << 27 February October 2017 / UMagazine

Why and how do some female child carers in Lesotho manage to stay in school despite being responsible for running a household?

This was the question that researcher Brenda Yamba, originally from Zambia, wanted to answer.

She defended her PhD at Maastricht University on 22 June, 2017

/ Positive view of the future prevents school dropout / Text Graziella Runchina Photography Herman Pijpers

Professor / student

“Brenda was what you might call a model student”, her supervisor Melissa Siegel says immediately.

“In addition to being disciplined and eager to learn, she also dealt extremely well with feedback. She was hugely motivated to get her PhD while holding down a full-time job, which made her a pleasure to work with.”

Positive view of the future

It was no coincidence that Yamba decided to dive into this subject. “I’ve been focusing on vulnerable children in Africa for years thanks to my work as a programme manager and adviser at organisations like Save the Children and United States Agency for International Development (USAID). I’m constantly surprised at how strong and resilient many are, so I wanted to figure out what could explain this attitude to life.” Yamba’s research showed that girls who take on the role of caregiver have different coping strategies, or ways of dealing with stress, which enable them to stay in school. “Their care tasks continued to occupy them during the lessons. But for many girls a positive view of the future was the most important factor preventing school dropout and allowing these teenagers to continue to fulfil their dual role. External help, too, as well as support within the family, school and community, all foster their resilience and help them keep up their attendance.”

Ideal supervisor

Yamba’s data consisted of interviews with the teenagers themselves, but also with teachers, policymakers and employees from a range of societal organisations. “The university pointed me towards Melissa as the ideal supervisor for the type of research I was do-

Brenda Yamba (1967) was born in Zambia and studied at the University of Zambia. She completed her PhD in June 2017 in Maastricht, where she participated in the Dual Career Training Programme in Governance and Policy Analysis (GPAC²). Fellows enrolled in the GPAC² hold jobs that allow them to spend a minimum amount of time on research eventually leading to a PhD. Yamba now lives in Pretoria, South Africa, where she works as senior regional adviser for orphans and vulnerable children for USAID in Southern Africa.

Melissa Siegel (1981) was born in the USA. She is a professor of Migration Studies and Head of Migration Studies at the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance and UNU-MERIT, where she manages several migration research projects, coordinates the Migration Studies specialisation as part of the master’s in Public Policy and Human Development and heads the diploma programme in Migration Management.

She also leads the research on migration and development at the Maastricht Centre for Citizenship, Migration and Development (MACIMIDE).

ing, and looking back I’m happy with this choice. She’s an expert in qualitative research and she knows parts of Africa well, having done projects in countries like Rwanda, Morocco and Nigeria.” Although Siegel only came on board in the latter stages of Yamba’s research, the two immediately hit it off. Siegel: “Brenda came to Maastricht twice a year for an extended visit, and otherwise we did a lot of emailing and Skyping.” The synergy between them meant Siegel, in turn, learnt a lot from her PhD candidate. “Although I know parts of Africa reasonably well, Lesotho was new to me.

I came to know more about it from Brenda and from her approach to the research. AIDS has had a huge impact on the country. Mortality rates are high and as a result Lesotho has many orphans. Thanks to Brenda I was able to learn a lot about how they live and the care structures surrounding them. Brenda’s stories were always inspiring. I consider her a role model, not only for her own daughters, but also for other PhD students.

And it was nice to see from close up an African woman getting her PhD.”

Powerless

Although Yamba’s research was on the positive factors motivating the girls to stay in school, she often felt powerless. “Especially when I spoke to the girls 28 UMagazine / October 2017

myself and realised how high the chances were that they’d quit. Knowing I couldn’t do anything concrete at that time to help them was sometimes hard to deal with.”

Free secondary education

Yamba made a number of recommendations to policymakers that should make it easier for teenage girls in Lesotho to stay in school in the future. She calls for more secondary education to be provided free of charge, and for teachers to be trained in providing specialised psychological support. “And school programmes need to be developed that promote support among fellow pupils and community members for vulnerable groups such as these teenage caregivers.”

Yamba may have a little more breathing space now that she has finished her PhD, but the work doesn’t stop. Based in Pretoria, she works as an adviser for orphans and vulnerable children for the regional HIV/ AIDS programme of USAID Southern Africa. “I notice that my research and the experience I gained during my PhD are already paying off in the work I’m now doing. I hope that what I’ve accomplished inspires more young women to help this vulnerable group of children in some way.” << 29 October 2017 / UMagazine

Valorisation

/ What can you do with basic research? /

Text Hans van Vinkeveen Photography Rafaël Philippen

It’s something Theunissen, chief valorisation officer at UM and the MHC, sees a lot: “Researchers produce a great deal of knowledge, but spend too little time thinking about whether it might have further value. As a result they miss out on all sorts of oppor- tunities.” Valorisation refers to the creation of economic and societal value from knowledge; think of patents, licensing, startups or research collaborations. Its importance is obvious, according to Theunissen: “It makes researchers better. The money earnt is pumped back into the research, and the process often leads to new insights for further research.”

Unknown is unloved

The MHC and the KTO guide researchers in commercialising their knowledge. The KTO is located on the Brightlands campus, a breeding ground for collaboration, innovation and startups. There are ample examples of successful valorisation, Theunissen says, especially in the life sciences. Take Pharmacell, now a leading producer in cell therapy and regenerative medicine, which has been acquired by the Swiss multinational Lonza. Or the recent deal with MDX Health, a listed company that collaborates with the Maastricht UMC and has moved its office from Herstal (Belgium) to the Brightlands campus.

By contrast, there are few examples in the humanities and social sciences (besides GRESB, a startup for sustainability benchmarking in real estate). “Making money in those areas has long been taboo,” says George, business developer for the humanities and social sciences. His explanation: unknown is unloved.

“People think it’s just about the euros, the economic value. But value creation is much more than that – think of things like exhibitions or media appearances.”

Valorisation, also known as knowledge utilisation, is becoming ever more important. What many researchers don’t yet realise is that it is also lucrative. And not only in terms of making money, explain Henri Theunissen and Ivo George from the Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus (MHC) and the Knowledge Transfer Office (KTO). They help academics to give their knowledge added value.

Comfort zone

The main challenge, the pair says, lies in raising awareness. Theunissen: “Researchers need to think more entrepreneurially. That’s not to say they have to become entrepreneurs themselves. They just need to keep their eyes open during the research process for potential applications of their work.” The MHC and the KTO help by offering interfaculty courses on knowledge utilisation. George: “We’re trying to draw them out of their comfort zone and get them to consider the value of their knowledge from a different perspective.

To take off their research glasses for a moment. Who are other potential stakeholders and target groups?”

Knowledge exploitation is the next step: exploring whether the potential applications of an idea are commercially interesting. “We might develop the idea further into a startup, say, or a deal with an existing company”, Theunissen explains. “And only then does it really begin: the search for investors, setting up a management team. We facilitate all that as well. The campus is the ideal place for this – a science-business ecosystem where companies can work together.” >> 30 UMagazine / October 2017

31 October 2017 / UMagazine

Off the job funding bodies like the NWO and the STW responsible for valorisation. This is counterproductive, and means these bodies are now in competition with one another because they set all kinds of preconditions and demand revenue or even intellectual property.” To make matters worse there are, in his view, too few people in government capable of understanding the potential impact of different disciplines.

Parochialism

Ultimately, the notion of valorisation retains a sense of the unpredictable. “You never know exactly where innovation will arise”, George says. “But it can be enforced strategically”, replies Theunissen.

Innovation often arises at the interface between disciplines. “Researchers tend not to be aware of this either. There’s a lot of parochialism. Academics communicate too little with their peers in other areas.”

Crossovers are one way of remedying this. Theunissen gives the example of the collaboration between the MHC, which is focused on health and life sciences, and Chemelot, a campus for chemistry and materials. “We test here the biomaterials that are developed there, such as plastics for knee prostheses. And that’s how you arrive at regenerative medicine, currently one of the top areas for innovation.” <<

You never know exactly where innovation will arise.

Measuring value

Determining the potential value of knowledge is, of course, no easy matter. “In the early stages of research it’s impossible to measure, as so much is still unclear. It’s basically a matter of feeling around for commercial opportunities. Could an idea lead to a new drug or medical test?” Timing, too, is crucial.

Could the knowledge become valuable in the future? Theunissen himself previously studied retroviruses, back when the applied value of such research was far from clear. “Then the AIDS virus was discovered, and all the knowledge accumulated up to that point was used in the development of a drug to fight it.”

In basic research, such applications are rarely obvious. So is this type of research threatened by the push for valorisation, which is associated with maximising utility and returns? There is no danger here, Theunissen thinks, as long as the government continues to value quality research. “Scientific research shouldn’t be focused a priori on applications. That will eventually hollow the research out.”

Yet it is difficult to prevent this from happening: “The problem is that people hold universities and

32 UMagazine / October 2017

/ My hobby is my work /

Henri Theunissen (1959) did his PhD in molecular biology and a postdoc in immunohaematology. He previously worked at Organon International, Diosynth RTP and Nobilon. He is currently chief valorisation officer at UM and the Brightlands MHC, and CEO of Knowledge Transfer Funds BV.

Ivo George (1979) studied business and held various positions in the employment and banking sectors. In 2010 he joined Eindhoven University of Technology to guide staff and students in the valorisation process.

He has been business development manager at UM since 2014, focusing for the last year on the humanities and social sciences.

Head of the IVF laboratory John Dumoulin

33 October 2017 / UMagazine

Text Hans van Vinkeveen Photography Paul van der Veer

Transplanting embryos – it’s not exactly an everyday hobby. But next to his work as head of the IVF department at the Maastricht University Medical Centre (MUMC), John Dumoulin spends his free time, too, fertilising eggs and cultivating embryos. Not of humans, but of horses, at a fertility centre that doubles as a laboratory to perfect fertility techniques. “It’d be great if we could make the leap from here to the hospital.”

Every fortnight or so Dumoulin, a clinical embryologist, can be found among the horses at the Equine Fertility Centre (EFC) in the village of Maria-Hoop.

Many of the horses here are award winners: lightning-fast trotters, top show jumpers and dressage ponies, winners of beauty contests or special breeds.

But there are ordinary horses here, too: surrogate mares. Dumoulin is not much of horse rider himself, although he’s been known to do it once in a while.

What he is doing here is research that looks a lot like his work in the hospital. ‘Off the job’ is not really the right description. “My hobby is my work and my work is my hobby.”

It may look like a normal farm, surrounded by meadows and stables, but the EFC is a laboratory. Its core business is embryo transplantation. Celebrated mares are sent here to be inseminated and, after a week or so, an embryo is rinsed from their uterus and placed in a surrogate. “That way the mare can jump, trot or do whatever she’s good at again within a few weeks.

Another advantage is that this process can be repeated 34 UMagazine / October 2017

fairly quickly, so that the mare is assured of offspring from multiple surrogates.” Occasionally the work is commissioned by the gene bank in an effort to save endangered breeds, such as the Groningen, from extinction.

A different research environment

Dumoulin was asked to set up the laboratory seven years ago. It has been run ever since as a scientific project with the permission of the hospital, he explains in the kitchen of the EFC, where a cuckoo clock marks every half hour with the sound of a whinny. The two organisations cooperate closely, and Dumoulin has invited Ton Vullers, the owner of the EFC, to join the interview.

The work at the EFC is refreshing, Dumoulin says. “It’s a completely different research environment. In a big institution like the hospital there are lots of meetings, whereas here the lines of communication are very short. You sit down together at the kitchen table and the next day it’s done.” He gets to make use of a fertil-

John Dumoulin ity technique at the EFC known as in-vitro maturation.

In IVM, immature eggs are retrieved and allowed to mature in a laboratory, making them more amenable to fertilisation. Later, the embryo can be transferred back to the uterus. The collaboration enables analysts from Maastricht to gain experience with this promising technique, which is not yet in use at the hospital.

Testing ground

Dumoulin considers it only a matter of time before IVM makes its way to the MUMC. Compared to existing methods, it has many advantages for women with cancer who want to have a child. IVF is offered one time only to cancer patients, and the required dose of hormones can be harmful. An alternative method involves preserving a piece of ovary that is later returned to the uterus, but the risk is that a stray cancer cell may have found its way into the tissue. “In IVM you extract a piece of ovarian tissue with multiple eggs. There’s no need for hormones; the eggs just need to mature. We’re able to gain experience in that technique here.”

In short, the EFC doubles as a testing ground for the hospital. So are the ethical constraints looser here – can you do more with horses than with people?

“Actually you can do the same things with people”, Dumoulin replies after some thought. “Other hospitals

are already running preclinical trials with IVM, and the practice of placing embryos in a surrogate happens in other places around the world. In rare situations we use donor eggs too, such as when a woman has no eggs of her own but a sister does, for example.”

Fruits

Dumoulin started using IVM four years ago. Since then he has seen few foals grow up – their time at the EFC is usually too short. As we speak, though, the foal of a celebrated stallion, the tragically deceased Hickstead, is roaming the meadow. Dumoulin is modest about the fruits of his labour. “It’s just a foal that looks very normal; there’s no IVM on his forehead.”

(1956) obtained his PhD at Maastricht University in 1997. As head of the IVF laboratory at the Maastricht University Medical Centre, he has extensive experience in assisted reproductive techniques and the cultivation of embryos.

He has been responsible for the laboratory phase of IVF/IVM treatment at the Equine Fertility Centre since the centre was founded.

Both men see the collaboration between the MUMC and the EFC as a win-win situation. “It’s a joint project bringing together veterinary and human research”, Vullers says. The two attend conferences together to gain new insights, such as the technique of diluting a small amount of semen in order to fertilise more eggs. In the future Dumoulin hopes to perfect the IVM method. “It’d be great if we could make the leap from here to the hospital.” <<

35 October 2017 / UMagazine

Text Annelotte Huiskes Photography Rafaël Philippen

Jan van Manen held many positions during his four decades in the police force. Now, as a member of the National Video Reconstruction Team and the Disaster Victim Identification Team, he still works the occasional 60 hour week. But this didn’t stop him from starting, at the ripe age of 55, the Master in Forensics, Criminology and Law at Maastricht University (UM). His next goal: to obtain his PhD on the role of video reconstruction in criminal procedure. “I want to keep on learning and working for as long as possible.”

/ A life of learning / Visit us at www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/alumni

36 UMagazine / October 2017

Van Manen initially joined the police out of idealism. “For me it’s about meaning; I want to contribute to society. I started on the beat in Doorn when I was 21, but pretty soon moved into detective work.

I found criminal investigations more rewarding. I get a real kick out of talking to a suspect and seeing what information I can draw out in order to solve the crime.”

Climbing the ladder from detective to team chief, Van Manen eventually became head of internal affairs. Next he coordinated a project aimed at quality improvement, but in 2008, he returned to his old love: investigative work. This time around, the focus was on video reconstruction.

People like you and me

Around 20 video reconstructions are made in the Netherlands each year. They are expensive, and as such are only used for very serious crimes. In a reconstruction, the suspect and witnesses re-enact the incident at the scene of the crime in the presence of a judge, a prosecutor, a lawyer and police officers. Van Manen coordinates these reconstructions and interviews the suspects and witnesses. To date he has some 250 reconstructions to his name.

The night before our interview he worked on the reconstruction of a stabbing incident on the street. What is the secret to his success as an interviewer? “I try to give the suspect the sense that I take him seriously and don’t think I’m better than him. I did that last night as

well; my feeling is that it leads to better results. Most people who have committed serious crimes are just like you and me. You can only get through to them if they don’t see you as a threat or as someone who’s judging them prematurely. So I try not to do that, because you want to get as much information out of them as you can to help the prosecutor or judge come up with a verdict. I find it relatively easy, but I notice that some of my colleagues struggle with that. Of course, it’s easier with some crimes than others.”

On the lap of the suspect

He remembers one reconstruction like it was yesterday. “At one point I was lying on the lap of the suspect, a man who had strangled and stabbed his wife to death. He couldn’t handle a reconstruction with a female stand-in who looked like his wife, so I played the victim while interviewing him. And it worked – he showed me exactly what he did to her.”

Van Manen is not daunted by much, but if there’s one thing he can’t handle, it’s watching child pornography. “In the indecency case against Benno L., the lifeguard from Den Bosch, a lot of material was found that had to be sifted through. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, whereas a pregnant colleague spent hours at the computer watching these videos. It’s part of the job, but everyone has their limits. Watching babies and toddlers be abused – I just can’t do it. And yet I don’t mind interviewing suspects of child abuse, because then I don’t have to see it.”

Victim identification

In 2000 Van Manen joined the Disaster Victim Identification Team, finding himself in situations that many others, in turn, would rather not think about. “I started out examining the bodies for identifying characteristics and reporting on my findings. I did that in Bali after the 2002 bombing, and spent four months in Thailand after the tsunami in 2004. Since then I’ve had a different role: team leader for reconciliation. That means ensuring that the information you get from bodies or body parts matches with those of the missing persons, which makes it possible to identify them. I’ve done this in places like Libya, following a plane crash in 2010, and I’m doing the same thing now with MH17. I can do this kind of work because I know that speedy identification helps other people, and that gives me a good feeling.”

Back to school

After a series of internal training courses at the police, Van Manen discovered the Master in Forensics, Criminology and Law at UM, at the time the only university in the Netherlands offering such a programme. And so he returned to the classroom in 2010, at the age of 55. “Because of my busy job I did the master’s in two years rather than one. The multidisciplinary setup of the programme appealed to me most.” One thing led to another, and he is now hoping to obtain his PhD using his own data: video reconstructions. “I want to keep on learning and working for as long as possible. I’ve noticed that the more you learn, the more aware you become of what you don’t know.” <<

Jan van Manen (1955) is acting head of the Regional Detective Service in the East Brabant police.

He is a member of the National Video Reconstruction Team and the Disaster Victim Identification Team. He completed the Master in Forensics, Criminology and Law in 2010, and is hoping to obtain his PhD under professors Taru Spronken and Hans Nelen on the role of video reconstructions in criminal procedure.

Alumni 37 October 2017 / UMagazine

Text Graziella Runchina Photography Eloise le Conge Kleyn, Istock Photo

Eloise le Conge Kleyn (1984) studied Work and Organisational Psychology at UM. She then spent several years working for ING in the Netherlands before pursuing an international career with various employers. She has been head of human resources at the Dubai office of Maersk Line since 2015.

/ From Rotterdam to Dubai, via Maastricht / Asked what she misses most about the Netherlands and she mentions her mother and her two dogs. Then there’s the clean air, cycling to work and proper bread with cheese. Otherwise, Eloise le Conge Kleyn’s life in Dubai looks a lot like her old life here. She studied Psychology at UM and has lived since 2015 in the Middle East, where she works for Maersk Line, the world’s largest container shipping company. “If you want to climb the ladder quickly, you have to make a disproportionate investment in your career.”

Raised by her mother in the centre of Rotterdam, Le Conge Kleyn was keen to go to university elsewhere. “I wanted to experience a completely new environment and Maastricht seemed to be – and indeed was – very internationally oriented. Initially I chose European Studies, which at the time you could only do in Maastricht. After a year I switched to Psychology because I wanted to go deeper into the things that motivate people: why they do what they do.”

International organisation

Alumni 38 UMagazine / October 2017

Work and Organisational Psychology turned out to be the ideal stepping stone to a career in human resources at various international companies. “During my master’s I did an internship at ING, and I’ve been fully immersed in the business world ever since.”

Next she did a management traineeship at ING Insurance (now Nationale Nederlanden), including a stint in Hong Kong. After several years at Philips she joined Maersk Line in Dubai, where she heads the HR department.

Leadership team

The Danish multinational Maersk Line is the largest container shipping company in the world. “We facilitate international trade”, Le Conge Kleyn explains. “To give you an idea of the size of the company: I have 33,000 colleagues, and we have 630 ships and 306 offices in 114 different countries.” As HR manager of the UAE cluster, which covers the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Iran, as well as interim HR manager for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, Le Conge Kleyn is responsible for HR policy and leads the team that handles personnel matters. “I’m part of the ‘leadership team’, and it’s my job to make sure our HR approach enables us to do business while at the same time complying with all applicable laws and regulations. In India, for instance, you’re obliged to provide a crèche for offices with 50 or more employees. Maersk Line is still expanding. In November 2016 we opened an office in Iran, where I was involved in recruiting local talent.”

Challenging work climate

“The most challenging part of my work is the constantly changing world around us and the question of how we as a company can respond. We’re always alert. Changes in the political climate or developments concerning the environment and nature have a direct impact on shipping and therefore on our business. For example, in the past few years both El Niño and deep-sea fishing have affected the seafood catch in India. And during elections there can be less cargo, because if the political situation in a country is uncertain, smaller companies tend to hold off on shipping freight.

All this results in a challenging work climate in which I have to make

strategic decisions quickly.” Another plus in her current job is the chance to travel widely and often. “I’m on the road a lot. These days I travel regularly to India, Pakistan, Oman, Qatar and Iran, but also Denmark, Jordan and Nepal.”

Good home base

Because she is away so much, she likes having a good home base in Dubai. “I love it here. Dubai is an interesting city to live in. In my experience it’s one of the most modern cities in the Middle East, where people from all over the world come together.” She also finds it luxurious, culturally diverse and extremely safe. “Dubai has a beautiful beach and borders on the desert. I’ve made many international friends here and in contrast to what many people think, I’m just as free here as I am in the Netherlands. I’m fortunate to live in a beautiful apartment complex with a nice pool. The nightlife is good too, and in the winter you can swim in the sea.”

Pragmatic thinking

What advice would Le Conge Kleyn give to ambitious students?

“If you’re interested in a career in business, I’d say think pragmatically and act fast. As I see it, if you want to climb the ladder quickly, you have to make a disproportionate investment in your career. I don’t see that as a sacrifice. That said, it does mean I’m very flexible when it comes to my working hours, travelling and moving. You can’t expect to make quick strides in your career if you’re not flexible and willing to take the opportunities that come your way.” << Visit us at www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/alumni 39 October 2017 / UMagazine

Back in balance

University Fund supports University Choir’s 40th anniversary

Last January the Limburg University Fund raised €25,000 in a local charity run to support the development of a special and very expensive accessory: the “Balance Belt”. Designed for people with severe balance disorders, at least four are now in use. Scientists at Maastricht University are working hard to make these belts more widely available.

Balance disorders are surprisingly common and can affect people young and old. The vestibular system, which monitors balance, can be impaired by certain life-saving antibiotics, autoimmune diseases and even tick bites. Failure of this system is permanent and cannot be treated with medication or surgery. Patients are left with severely impeded movement, often leading to falls and bone fractures as well as nausea and vomiting. These problems can cause depression and social isolation.

The Balance Belt combines a sensor, a computing unit and a series of vibrating elements. The sensor identifies the posture of the patient, while the computing unit calculates how far this posture is off with reference to a vertical posture. It then triggers the vibrating elements, which alert the patient to the required correction. <<

University Fund’s annual fundraising campaign

In spring the Limburg University Fund launched its seventh annual fundraising campaign, which will continue until the end of this calendar year. With our new website and online giving portal, supporting research and education at Maastricht University has never been easier. A gift to Maastricht University allows you to help fund groundbreaking research and ensure that all students, regardless of their background, have the opportunity to study.

Donations from our alumni, however small, make a big difference.

So far we have been overwhelmed with support, and with our telethon now in full swing we expect this to increase even more.

To make a donation or to learn more about the University Fund, please visit our website at https://www.ufl-swol.nl. <<

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New: Queen of Hearts Fund for Women’s Studies

On Saturday 17 June the Maastricht University Choir performed the Carmina Burana in honour of its 40th anniversary.

This special event was subsidised by the University Fund’s Committee for the support of Student Activities (COSA).

The choir, composed of students and staff from 15 different countries, gave the 1000-strong audience an unforgettable performance full of joy and spirit. The Fund intends to continue supporting such activities; in its view, students and the

organised contributions they make to the university and their fellow students form the backbone of the Maastricht University community. <<

Pregnancy makes heavy demands on women’s cardiovascular reserves and the adaptability of their blood circulation. In one in five women, inadequate cardiovascular adaptations can stunt the growth of the foetus or cause high blood pressure and pre-eclampsia in the mother. These can be life-threatening situations for both mother and child. But in the long term, too, these women are two to eight times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke and heart failure; problems that are also more common in their offspring. All this makes pregnancy the ultimate health challenge for women. Early identification and timely preventive treatment of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease and problems that can arise before, during and after pregnancy are thus cornerstones in the health of women, children, families and society at large – not least since cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of mortality among Dutch women (31%).

Scientists at Maastricht University, particularly in the fields of gynaecology and obstetrics, already have great expertise and experience in this area. They now want to further strengthen this all-important research and share their knowledge with partners in society. As achieving these ambitions will require additional financial resources on top of their normal research funding, they are asking for donations to the recently established Queen of Hearts Fund for Women’s Studies. All support will be gratefully received. For more information, please visit www.ufl-swol.nl/named-funds.

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

“Pregnant women and mothers need to be and stay healthy if we want to ensure that mother, child and family all thrive in the future”, explains Professor Marc Spaanderman. “The Queen of Hearts Fund facilitates research to achieve this.” The fund has two aims: to help 50% of pregnancies run a healthier course by 2025, and to promote better use of the pregnancy as a biological stress test in order to improve women’s cardiovascular health in the long term. << 41 October 2017 / UMagazine

Profile

News Maastricht Young Academy DNA of soldiers with PTSD offers less protection against trauma

The DNA of soldiers who develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after deployment to a war zone gives them less protection against traumatic experiences.

Genetic material typically shows measurable changes after traumatic events. However, these changes are not or are barely seen in the DNA of soldiers who develop symptoms of PTSD. This is the conclusion of a comprehensive study conducted by an international group of researchers from the Dutch Ministry of Defence, University Medical Center Utrecht, Maastricht University and the Veteran Affairs Medical Center in collaboration with the University of California, San Diego. It’s the first time that epigenetic changes in the blood have been linked to the development of PTSD symptoms. Their findings on epigenetic changes in the DNA of

soldiers exposed to war trauma were recently published in the renowned academic journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Many people are exposed to traumatic events and can suffer serious psychological consequences. But that exposure does not have the same psychological effect on everyone. “It’s important to understand why traumatic experiences have varying effects on the psychological state of soldiers and other risk groups. Our research contributes to this understanding”, explains Bart Rutten, professor of the Neuroscience of Mental Disorders at UM. “Even though our findings only explain a small portion of PTSD symptoms, they are an important first step in unravelling the biological mechanisms involved.” <<

Labour market for school leavers is better but still not ideal

School leavers are finding jobs more often and more quickly, but not always for the desired number of hours. They are also regularly working outside their professional field and in jobs below their educational level. These are some of the findings of the report entitled ‘Schoolverlaters tussen onderwijs en arbeidsmarkt 2016’ (‘School leavers between education and the labour market 2016’), published by Maastricht University’s Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market.

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For instance, 36% of working graduates from secondary vocational programmes would like to work more hours. Of those with a contract for up to 11 hours, 75% would like to work more. Many are working outside their preferred professional field. Further, about 60% of graduates from secondary and tertiary vocational programmes work at the professional level for which they have been trained. This means some 40% experience a mismatch between their education and their job. <<

Twelve young scientists from six UM faculties launched a Maastricht version of the Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). The Maastricht Young Academy (MYA) will be a dynamic and innovative platform for talented scientists and scholars from various disciplines to develop their visions on academia, higher education policy and science communication.

The MYA will function independently within Maastricht University and can serve as an advisory group for the Executive Board and other relevant forums. Its members will also organise inspiring activities for target groups within UM, Limburg and the Euregion. These activities will be developed and launched over the coming months.

The members of the MYA are Blanche Schroen and Anique de Bruin (FHML), Jill Lobbestael and Federico de Martino (FPN), Steven Kelk and Melissa Siegel (FHS), Bram Akkermans and Mariolina Eliantonio (FL), Caroline Goukens and Mathias Staudigl (SBE), and Anna Harris and Tamar Sharon (FASoS). <<

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 Arts, Media and Culture Globalisation, Transnationalism and Development

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

Faculty of Humanities and Sciences • • • •

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

Faculty of Law •

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

Colophon Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience •

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

School of Business and Economics •

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

Publisher © Maastricht University Chief Editor Annelotte Huiskes Editorial Board Rianne Letschert (President), Denis Ancion, Teun Dekker, Manon van Engeland, Ad van Iterson, Jos Kievits, Mirjam oude Egbrink, Alexander Sack, Hildegard Schneider, Jo Wachelder.

Texts Meyke Houben, Annelotte Huiskes, Femke Kools, Jolien Linssen, Graziella Runchina, Hans van Vinkeveen.

Photography Philip Driessen (p12), Harry Heuts (p16), Rafaël Philippen (p24,36), Herman Pijpers (p28), Sacha Ruland (p3, p19), Arjen Schmitz (p7), Ted Struwer (p30), Hugo Thomassen (cover, p4), Paul van der Veer (spread,p33) Translations and English editing Alison Edwards Graphic concept and design Zuiderlicht Maastricht Print Drukkerij Tuijtel, Hardinxveld-Giessendam

Interfaculty institutes • •

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

Maastricht University magazine is published in February, June and October.

It is sent on demand to UM alumni and to external relations.

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