Current PhD projects

PRICELESS

Adapting innovative privacy-preserving technologies to allow for data, information and intelligence sharing between private and public organizations, PRICELESS improves resilience through better standards, controls, regulation, and policing.

The project is led by Dr. Christoph Rausch. 

The project has received funding from NWO. 

Generative Enhanced Next-Generation Intelligent Understanding Systems (GENIUS) lab

The lab will co-develop generative, human-AI collaborative knowledge engineering methods and techniques for distinct yet highly interweaved knowledge engineering steps: collaborative knowledge synthesis; integration and linking of distributed knowledge fragments; integration of structured knowledge in generative AI models; trustworthy conversational AI using FAIR data and services; and hybrid human-AI ethics. These methods and techniques are designed, developed, experimented with, evaluated and validated in a variety of contexts.

‍The project is a collaboration between Delft University of Technology, Maastricht University, dsm–firmenich, and Kickstart AI.

EMBRACing changE - Overcoming Blockages and Advancing Democracy in the European Neighbourhood

The research project EMBRACing changE (Overcoming Blockages and Advancing Democracy in the European Neighbourhood) aims to respond to the counter-democracy trends after the coloured revolutions and the Arab Spring. It does so through an inter-disciplinary, multi-method and cross-regional assessment of both blockages to and drivers of democratisation in 12 case study countries across Eastern Europe, Southern Caucasus, Western Balkans, Northern Africa and the Middle East.

The project is led by Dr. Giselle Bosse.

This project has received funding from Horizon Europe.

Trustworthy AI for Media Lab (TAIM)

The TAIM lab brings together two of the strongest groups on personalisation and recommender systems in the Netherlands, the University of Amsterdam and the University of Maastricht, and a leading media organisation, RTL, to develop trustworthy and personalised media.

ISPA: Integral Safe and Sustainable-by-Design Plasma Process for Acrylonitrile Production

The societal urge to turn to sustainable and circular modes of production and consumption brings huge challenges for the Dutch chemical industry. Currently, safety considerations as well as economies of scale dictate a landscape of large installations clustering at industrial sites. Products include fertilizers, plastics, and vaccine carrier proteins and are mostly fossil derived. A roadmap to guide the industry to sustainable and circular whilst also preserving economic viability and at least the existing level of safety does not yet exist as suitable technology is lacking. A potential solution for the common building block acrylonitrile is investigated in this work.

NanoBubbles: how, when and why does science fail to correct itself?

Prof. Cyrus Mody received a Synergy Grant in 2020 for his project NanoBubbleS: how, when and why does science fail to correct itself?. The project investigates how, when and why science fails to correct itself.

A coalition of hawks and doves? Explaining military receptiveness to civil society calls for transparency around the use of force

The Hawks and Doves project examines military receptiveness to NGO calls for transparency in Western European countries. It aims to understand the conditions under which military officials are willing to cooperate with civil society to improve transparency around the use of military force and its consequences.

The project is lead by Dr. Yf Reykers and Dr. Francesca Colli.

The project is funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation’s special programme on Security, Society and the State.

Care matters: making and valuing home in a mobile world

Dr. Lauren Wagner received a NWO Aspasia Grant for the project Care matters: making and valuing home in a mobile world. Care matters explores how the labour of caring for a home is changing along with increasingly mobile and partial practices of dwelling. 

Managing Scarcity and Sustainability: The Oil Industry, Environmentalism, and Alternative Energy in the Age of Scarcity

Managing Scarcity and Sustainability: The Oil Industry, Environmentalism, and Alternative Energy in the Age of Scarcity is a five year research project led by Prof. Cyrus Mody.

This Vici project, funded by NWO, uses the case of oil in the 1970s to understand why companies adopt or reject alternative energy and conservation, and uses that understanding to facilitate an energy transition.

Moving animals: A History of Science, Media and Policy in the Twentieth Century

Moving animals: A History of Science, Media and Policy in the Twentieth Century is a five-year research project led by Prof. Raf de Bont.

The project – sponsored by an NWO Vici grant – studies changing human-nature relations by focusing on human involvement with ‘wild’ animals that move (or are being moved) over great distances. 

PURE3D

PURE3D is a three-year project funded by the PDI-SSH (Platform Digitale Infrastructuur–Social Sciences and Humanities) with a mission to advance the virtual research environment through the development of an access infrastructure for viewing interactive Digital Heritage and Digital Humanities 3D content online. It is led by Prof. Susan Schreibman and Dr. Costas Papadopoulos.

Deliberation Laboratory (DeLab)

Deliberation Laboratory (DeLab) is a four-year research project led by Prof. John Parkinson and colleagues at the University of Göttingen.

With Deliberation Laboratory (DeLab), we develop a transformative online testing environment that allows us to explain the nature, causes, and consequences of citizens’ perceptions in deliberative public, online dialogue across languages. 

The Critical Visitor: Intersectional Approaches for Rethinking & Retooling Accessibility and Inclusivity in Heritage Spaces

The Critical Visitor: Intersectional Approaches for Rethinking & Retooling Accessibility and Inclusivity in Heritage Spaces is a five-year project led by Dr. Eliza Steinbock. 

The aim of the project is to enable cultural institutions to implement daily working practices (selection, collection, preservation, display, interaction) that alleviate structures of exclusion. 

Image created by Noah Littel

LIMES: The Hardening and Softening of Borders

LIMES, the Latin word for border, is a doctoral programme for 13 talented PhD candidates in the domain of the humanities and social sciences, centred on the theme of ‘The Hardening and Softening of Borders: Europe in a Globalising World’. It has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie (grant agreement No 847596).

LIMES is led by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS), thereby working closely with University College Maastricht (UCM), the School of Business and Economics (SBE), and the Faculty of Law (FL). 6 out of 13 PhD candidates are employed by FASoS.

Making Clinical Sense

Making Clinical Sense describes, analyses, rethinks and redesigns the material conditions of learning sensory, bodily skills. By attending to the everyday material practices of training doctors (such as the use of physical models, blackboard drawing, making and watching video, searching online images and peer-to-peer learning) across place and over time, the research team offers unique insights into how the way people learn connects with what they learn. Making Clinical Sense has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 678390).

The Scientific Conference: A Social, Cultural, and Political History

The Scientific Conference: A Social, Cultural, and Political History is a three-year research project funded by HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area) led by Dr. Geert Somsen.

Individual research projects

Below you can find a list of PhD candidates that conduct their projects individually, outside a larger project.

Part-time PhD candidates in European Studies, campus Brussels

At our Brussels campus, you can pursue a PhD alongside your work. Below you can find a list of names of people who participate in this scheme, and their research projects.