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Ylana Sour (19) already knew halfway through secondary school that she wanted to be a paediatrician when she grew up. “When I was three or four years old, I had a bad experience with a doctor myself. I hope that later on, when I’m a doctor, I can show that it can be done differently.” Ylana is now in the first year of her Medicine degree. She is also the first in her family to go to university. “If you think about it, that is quite special. ‘Finally, someone will become a doctor’, proclaims my mother almost daily. I have to laugh about that.”

Everything on Earth is interconnected and has an impact on everything else. Nothing is isolated. This insight prompted the emergence of the very transdisciplinary field of Earth System Science. The field is gaining a foothold at the Brightland Campus Greenport Venlo in the form of the research institute System Earth Science.  The institute's founders, Roy Erkens of the Maastricht Science Programme and Pim Martens of University College Venlo, discuss it.

In March, Dr. Konrad Kollnig was granted an AiNed Fellowship for his research project RegTech4AI. The project combines expertise in law and technology to develop regulatory technologies for citizens, enforcement agencies, and businesses in the domain of artificial intelligence (AI). This shall support them in the implementation of AI-relevant laws such as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and the upcoming EU AI Act and, more generally, contribute to the global challenge of regulating AI technologies.

The coming years will see tens of thousands of homes in the Netherlands undergo extensive renovation and modernisation. While the main goal is to improve energy efficiency, researcher Juan Palacios is interested in understanding the impact of home renovations on residents’ health. He will spend the next three years working on this topic, supported by a prestigious Veni grant.

Studying in a language that is not your mother tongue can be challenging. That's why the Language Centre at Maastricht University is dedicated to breaking down language barriers. This centre of expertise provides tailored solutions for students facing language challenges, delivered by specialised and knowledgeable language teachers. The Language Centre offers a range of language training courses, including academic language skills and intercultural communication skills.

Universities are jointly reducing the percentage of fully English-language undergraduate programmes by almost a third and plan to introduce a Dutch-taught variant to 35 English-taught Bachelor’s programmes. 

Failure is part of life, but not something academics talk about often. In this interview, Brigitte Le Normand reflects on the failure of her creative research outputs.

Owned and run by UM alum Natalia Westermann, the Dotnsquare store on the Heggenstraat in Maastricht is a vibrant tribute to polka dots, pragmatism, sustainability, social entrepreneurship and love for Limburg.

Professor in Organ-Specific Metabolic Imaging