I lived and worked in the US for a long time, and my wife is originally from there. So I go there regularly for both business and pleasure. The differences between American and Dutch healthcare are fascinating to see, as is the debate in both countries. In the Netherlands, the last few months were...
As bills don’t pay themselves an income is required, some obtain it by working for a wage, others by starting up their own business and some are so talented that they can make an income out of their hobby. In the Weekly column ‘My Way to Make Money’ we interview a student or a university employee...
A few days ago the first chamber of the Dutch parliament finally agreed to amend the Law on study finance (Wet studiefinanciering 2000) so as to introduce a ‘social loan system’. In essence, the amendment implies that future students will no longer receive basic support (basisbeurs) in the form of a...
Christmas markets in the region were hard to miss in December. The one in Maastricht, called ‘Magisch Maastricht’, was on my way home from work, so I both literally and figuratively couldn’t miss it. As in previous years, I often heard more German than Dutch voices—an indicator of the popularity of...
The senseless killings and horrific attack on a newspaper and on a shop. Of course these terrorist attacks are violations of the right to life and the freedom of expression and therefore on our democratic societies. The perpetrators wanted to instill fear and to create chaos and undo our precious...
Ton Wilthagen recently argued that universities should bring their knowledge to the market more convincingly... This blog is only available in Dutch.
The Harvard Professor v. The Chinese Restaurant
In communications the medium is the message. Don’t mail if you can call. Don’t call if you can visit. That is my motto, also in 2015. Of course you can wish your friends a happy New Year via a post on Facebook or LinkedIn, a 140 character Tweet, or by sending an e-mail to all your relations. Some...
‘Everything valuable is vulnerable’, wrote one of the greatest Dutch poets, Lucebert, in 1974. Coincidentally, this was also the year that the first fifty students started the medicine programme in Maastricht, even before the official approval from The Hague (the Rijksuniversiteit Limburg was only...
