UM & Europe

Following Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s controversial announcement about scrapping third-party fact-checkers and replacing them with X-like community notes, experts are concerned that these moderation changes will negatively impact European users. This comes despite the Digital Services Act (DSA) having come into force in February last year to protect Europeans from online misinformation and hate speech. 

This summer, I attended the EURAM and EGOS conference, where I presented Martin Carree’s and my paper on how ecosystem factors impact social enterprise’s social performance. Both conferences offered invaluable opportunities to present my research, connect with fellow academics, and engage in some of the most critical discussions surrounding social innovation, organizational theory, and the grand challenges we face as a society.

The new UM president, Rianne Letschert, leaves no room for doubt. She is delighted with the choice to profile the university as the European university of the Netherlands. Maastricht University forms an international and predominantly European community in a region wedged between three borders. This makes the region in itself a European economic, social and cultural living lab.

To encourage support staff to broaden their horizon, develop themselves and experience innovative solutions to relevant problems from partners across Europe, Maastricht University has launched an initiative to stimulate its employees to participate in a European staff mobility programme. UM’s Erasmus+ Staff Mobility Coordinator Tamara Aroustamova explains how a couple of days at a partner university can change perspectives and motivate people – and why you should also give it a go. 

Professor Andrea Ott successfully applied for a a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on Crises and Emergencies in EU Integration (EmergEU) in July 2024. In the upcoming three years, the centre will explore crises and emergencies in EU integration. Research, guest lectures and teaching activities will be embedded within the existing interdisciplinary Centre for European Research in Maastricht (CERiM). This allows researchers from Maastricht Centre for European Law (MCEL) together with the network under CERIM to explore the topic from an interdisciplinary perspective and together with researchers from the Faculty of Arts and Social Studies (FASoS).

Three researchers from Maastricht University (UM) will receive a prestigious ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council. This will enable them to set up a scientific research team in the coming years for studies on computer models simulating the human body, food supply in relation to urban poverty, and enforcement of European migration law. The three Maastricht scientists will receive €1.5 million each. Their funding is part of the EU Horizon Europe programme.