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?
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.
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.
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.
From the 17th to 19th March 2023, ten students from the Honors Programme in Maastricht University organized and attended a conference in Barcelona, focusing on Laminin Alpha-2–Congenital Muscular Dystrophy (LAMA2-CMD), also known as Merosin-Deficient Congenital Dystrophy Type 1A (MDC1A).
Prof. Dr. Anique de Bruin will be the project leader of the NRO funded, national consortium "SELFLEX: Towards Evidence-informed Support for Self-regulation of Flexible Learning," which will start in the autumn of 2023, with a subsidy amount of €900.000.
Elderly individuals who live alone are particularly vulnerable to prolonged feelings of loneliness. That is why the researchers of the euPrevent PROFILE project addressed loneliness in older people.
Prof. dr. ir. Gerard van Rooij will deliver his inaugural lecture titled "Out of Balance" on 02 June. With this lecture, he officially begins his tenure as professor of plasma chemistry at Maastricht University.