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Bringing scientific research and healthcare practice together. This is exactly what the Living Lab in Ageing and Long-Term Care, Limburg has been doing for 25 years. The Living Lab builds bridges between practice in care for older people and scientific research. This approach is called citizen science, which basically means involving citizens in research. And it is rapidly gaining ground. How can you manage this successfully? What makes it a useful approach? What are the obstacles? We discuss all of these questions with Prof. Hilde Verbeek, vice-chair of the Living Lab.

Scientists at Maastricht University have succeeded in refining synthetic hydrogels to closely mimic the dynamics of human soft tissue, creating ideal circumstances for cells to grow just as they would in the human body. UM-researcher Matt Baker recently received a prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant to enable the next step.

Maastricht University’s Leadership Academy promotes leadership skills across its academic and support staff at many different levels and career stages. Ann Vanderhaeghe talks about the team’s approach, their offer and the larger debate about leadership culture.

Dean Jolliffe, lead economist at the World Bank, visited SBE to give a lecture and masterclass on Monitoring Global Poverty: Developments and Measurement Challenges. Here you will find the full recording of his visit.

Professor Fred Zijlstra is set to retire in May. How does he look back on his career? What is his take on current developments in the field of work and organisational psychology? And how can we, as a society, best organise work—now and in the future?

The Maastricht Sustainability Institute recently organized the Presentation and Network Day as a culmination of the "Integrated Sustainability Project" (ISP) course, which is a key component of the Master's programme in Sustainability Science, Policy and Society. The event, held on June 1 at Tapijn, celebrated the completion of the four-week ISP course and showcased the impressive sustainability assessments conducted by the participating students.

Climate change is considered an existential threat to humanity. While there are significant implications for the natural world from climate change, like biodiversity loss, threatened species and ocean acidification, the planet will likely adapt and survive to the human-induced damages and climatic changes we are observing. As demonstrated by the ‘rewilding’ of the long-desolate landscapes where the Chernobyl nuclear disaster took place in 1986. The flourishing return of wildlife to the Chernobyl site is just one example to show that the planet can adapt and survive in even the most extreme conditions, but the same may not be true for humans.

Students indicate that they remember the material better. Teachers can integrate a sense of real-life into their training, and there is less need for home visits. Virtual technology has a significant impact on the Health Sciences (HS) programme. The initiator of virtual technology within the programme is Nynke de Jong, a member of the taskforce "Instructional Design and E-learning." Nynke primarily focuses on the use of VR goggles in education.

On October 25 2023, the Marc Cornelissen Brightlands Award will be presented for the fifth time. Candidates can apply for it until 15 June. The award is aimed at anyone in the Netherlands-Germany-Belgium border region who is working on a dream to accelerate the circular transition. A prize of €35,000 is attached to the award, earmarked for realising that dream.

In the last Student-Meet of the year, students discussed the triumphs and tribulations of the academic year gone by.