In the wake of neo-liberal informed global trends to set performance standards and intensify accountability, the Dutch government aimed for ‘raising standards for basic skills’. While the implementation of literacy standards was hardly noticed, the introduction of numeracy standards caused a major backlash …

Wat vraagt een duurzame loopbaan eigenlijk voor een werkende? Naar mijn idee vraagt dat om 3 dingen. Allereerst zelfkennis en zelfbewustzijn. Weten waar je talent liggen en weten waar jij warm voor draait, maar óók weten in welke omgeving jij het beste uit jezelf kunt halen. Ten tweede geloof ik dat …

Studies among people with dementia demonstrated that the sleep quality and rhythm improves significantly when people are exposed to ambient bright light. Since almost half of the healthy older people also indicate to suffer from chronic sleep disorders, the question arises whether ambient bright light …

Sleeping is an important part of human life as multiple sleep restriction studies have shown. However, its function is not yet completely understood even though researchers have been performing sleep experiments for years. These experiments require sleep stage scoring, which as of this moment is done …

I was somewhat surprized with the fog in Groningen upon my arrival. This is not the fog that covers the beautiful landscapes of the northern Netherlands in the evening and in the early morning. No… It is the fog that obscures the real aspects of the earthquake problem in the region and is crystallised …

BACKGROUND: Up to 33% of the general population over 50 years of age are affected by nocturnal leg cramps. Currently there are no generally accepted clinical characteristics, which identify nocturnal leg cramps. This study aims to identify these clinical characteristics and to differentiate between them …

This study was commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs of the European Parliament. It analyses the political and legal dynamics behind referendums on EU-related matters. It …

‘Wake up and smell the…’: a discourse analysis on bio digestion in The Netherlands. Against the backdrop of the energy sustainability objectives of 2020, a growing number of projects to generate clean energy are being initiated. However, such initiatives often meet resistance of local governments and …

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the foreign policy changes that the EU experienced due to the Iraq crisis. The increasing complexity of the global security environment has played an important role in the EU foreign policy evolution by challenging the EU’s effective management of …

The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the reasons for a low political participation in Czechoslovakia in the wake of the Velvet Revolution, which started on 17 November 1989, by a literature review. The Czechoslovak citizens reacted on several developments in their surrounding countries, …