At the 25^th of May the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into effect. Applicable to the entire EU, its aim is to protect the individual rights of citizens while guaranteeing free and secure movement of personal data within the EU. Cosimo Monda, head of the European Centre on Privacy and Cybersecurity at the UM Faculty of Law, explains the consequences. “Companies and public bodies alike can benefit – if they come prepared.”

The law needs to be changed to prevent people from being locked in a religious marriage, writes Maastricht University (UM) lawyer Pauline Kruiniger in the final report on the MARICAP study, Niet langer geketend aan het huwelijk (‘Breaking the chains of marriage’). Following one of the report’s recommendations for additional civil legislation, the Minister for Legal Protection Sander Dekker promised last week to come up with a bill that would compel partners cooperate with a religious divorce in order to combat marital captivity.

Last year researchers from ICIS, Maastricht University’s institute for sustainable development, created an inventory of projects seeking to make a sustainable change to people’s energy consumption. Together with 10 research partners in the EU Horizon 2020 project ENERGISE, they gathered information on more than 1,000 projects and initiatives in 30 European countries. “This information is now available to everyone in an online database, the largest of its kind in Europe”, says Julia Backhaus, the coordinator of the ICIS ENERGISE team. As part of the European Week of Sustainable Energy, the database will be presented this week in Brussels.

The research laboratories at the Villa Flora in Venlo were officially opened on 31 May. Within Campus Venlo, research into the effects of nutrition takes place at the Center for Healthy Eating and Food Innovation (HEFI) and the Food Claims Center Venlo (FCCV). With these labs, the Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo can be considered a fully-fledged academic community, where both research and education have a place.

Performance anxiety, loneliness or a sense of being overwhelmed are all perfectly normal if you take on the challenge of studying abroad. But when these emotions prevent you from functioning as you would like, it might be time to look for a little help.

Dean Paes and Samaneh Ghazanfari are two of the four UM researchers who were able to go abroad this year with a Research Mobility Award from YERUN. This scholarship, from the Young European Research Universities network (YERUN), aims to stimulate research collaboration. And it does, according to their experiences.

On the 6th of July Mirte van den Boogaard and Augustin Poncelet are among the first graduates of the bachelor’s programme at University College Venlo (UCV), which kicked off three years ago. They look back on a memorable experience, a pioneering period in a small community where everyone knew one another. And where students are given the freedom to compile their own curriculum.

“There’s no shortage of care available in the Netherlands for people with acquired brain injury, but in practice it doesn’t always reach the right patient at the right time”, says Professor Caroline van Heugten. “Especially patients who are affected less in a directly visible way and more at the level of cognitive, emotional and social functioning.” Van Heugten is one of the founders of the Limburg Brain Injury Center.

Anyone who walks into a bookstore cannot miss it. The shelves are full of popular scientific books about our brain. They offer a wealth of useful knowledge, from insights into the adolescent brain to tips for keeping the aging brain healthy. Our brains are not only an exciting area of research, but it also seems more and more that they influence how we think we should live. Ties van de Werff (FASoS) devoted his PhD research to this.

After her medical studies in Maastricht, Marijke Wijnroks went to work in poor countries, often in dangerous circumstances. Now, as a policymaker and manager at The Global Fund, she has joined the fight against the near-ineradicable diseases of tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS. While she never planned her career, there is a clear common thread running through it. “Whenever I go on a field trip, I meet people who are the living proof that what I’m doing has meaning.”