Martijn van der Meer
Safeguarding a healthy future: Dutch preventive child health intervention between politics and practice, 1901-2020
Erasmus University Rotterdam, ESHCC & Erasmus Medical Centre, dept. of Medical ethics, Philosophy and History of Medicine, [email protected]
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Ralf Futselaar, Dr. Timo Bolt, Dr. Noortje Jacobs
Background
Martijn obtained his Bachelor’s degree in History at Utrecht University in 2017. During his undergraduate studies, he followed minors in history of science and digital humanities and studied at the Department of Medical history and Bioethics of the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a visiting student. This preluded his MSc in history and philosophy of science at Utrecht University during which followed option papers on the history of eugenics, evolutionary theory, and Malthusianism at Oxford University. He wrote his master thesis on the history of Dutch public health. Besides his NOW-funded PhD research on the history of child health care, Martijn works as a policy maker on open and responsible science at Tilburg University and acts as chair of the Center of Trial and Error of which he is a co-founder.
Summary PhD Project
This project investigates the history of preventive health care for young children in the Netherlands. To do so, the focus will not exclusively lie on national, top-down policies, but I will also look at the influence of medics and paramedics, parents and local authorities. What were the ambitions of these groups and how did they change in the course of the Twentieth Century? What were the threats to health they identified and who was supposed to prevent them? And, importantly, who actually had the authority over children and their care?
Publications
Academic
- ‘Het vertrouwen in erfelijk alcoholisme’, Wonderkamer: tijdschrift voor wetenschapsgeschiedenis 2.1 (May 2021).
- ‘Tuberculosevrees: medisch hervormers tussen cultuurpessimisme en maakbaarheid in het interbellum’, Utrecht Student Journal for Young Biomedical Scientists 2 (September 2021).
- With S. Devine, M.B. Perpinyà, V. Delrue, S.D.M. Gaillard, T.F.K. Jorna, L. Millett, C. Pozzebon, and J. Visser , ‘Science fails. Let’s publish’, Journal of Trial and Error1 (November 2020).
- ‘Introducing the Journal of Trial and Error to Historians of Science’, Shells and Pebbles, February 2020.
- With M.B Perpinya, S. Galliard, N. Hamman, J. Visser & D. Calveri, ‘Manifesto for Trial and Error in Science’ on jtrialerror.com (2019).
- With Sicco de Knecht, Loek Brinkman, Manon Kluijtmans, & Frank Miedema. (2021). Reshaping the Academic Self: Connecting Education & Open Science (Version 2). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5345573
- Several publications in and with Historisch Tijdschrift Aanzet (HTA):
- ‘Historici – stop met wenen en kom uw loopgraven uit!, HTA 3 (June 2021).
- ‘De gekke mensen van vroeger: essay-review “Pest en Cholera: een bloedstollende geschiedenis van de geneeskunde”, HTA 1 (2020).
- ‘Geschiedenis, Filosofie én Gezondheidszorg? Essay-review “Basisboek Geschiedenis en Filosofie van de Gezondheidswetenschappen”’, HTA 2 (2019).
- ‘Historici, hedendaagse politiek, en beschuldigingen van twintigste-eeuws racisme’, HTA 3 (2019).
- Editor special issue, ‘Themanummer Wetenschapsgeschiedenis’, HTA 2 (2019).
- ‘Medisch Materiaal: een historische interpretatie van patiëntendossiers als bijdrage aan het bioethisch debat over objectivering’, HTA 3 (2017).
- With M. Van der Pluijm, ‘Een pleidooi voor geschiedwetenschap als ambacht’, HTA 2 (2016).
Popular
- With J. Schaafsma. ‘Verdienmodel grote uitgevers bedreigt onbetaalbare academische vrijheid’, NRC 05.2022.
- With J. Schaafsma. ‘“Pure” misery: how Open Access makes us more dependent on big publishers’, Univers11.2021.
- With M.S. Meijer. ‘Aan ziekte wordt verdiend, aan preventie niet: waarom voorkomen niet altijd beter is dan genezen’, Vrij Nederland 10, 2020.
- With M.S. Meijer. ‘Flat Earthers: Moedig vanuit de marge’, Vrij Nederland 1., 2020.
- Several publications in the University Newspaper – Digitaal Universiteitsblad Utrecht University (DUB):
- ‘Waarom een kerncurriculum helpt bij het bestrijden van de volgende pandemie’, DUB (November 2020). o With M.A. Burke, ‘To all graduate students: science is broken and you need to fix it’, DUB (August 2020).
- ‘Geesteswetenschappers falen aan de lopende band’, DUB (January 2020).
- With S.M. Gaillard, ‘Wetenschap, wees eens eerlijk over jezelf!’, DUB (December 2019).
Talks
- ‘Challenging tuberculosis : building a consensus on environmental causes during the Dutch interwar years’ Gewina Woudschoten conferentie (Zeist, 17.06.2022).
- ‘Open science: what it is, has been, and can be’, Invited speaker: research day on communication and cognition studies (Tilburg, 30.03.2022).
- ‘Academic integrity in the context of systemic change’, Summer Seminar on Research Integrity (VU Amsterdam, 26.08.2021).
- ‘Doing Good Science in a Compromising Context’, invited speaker: Apollo Society for Translational Medicine (U.M.C. Utrecht, 25.06.2021).
- ‘From proximal cause to epidemiological unit: conceptualising the eatiology of tuberculosis during the Dutch interwar years’, Early career workshop: What was Epidemiology? The History of an Undisciplined Field (University of Edinburgh, 17.06.2021).
- ‘Wetenschap als geïnstitutionaliseerd vertrouwen’, invited speaker: VeerEvents (UTwente, 18.02.2021).
- ‘Beyond Noble-like research’, invited speaker: Material Pioneers symposium III (T.U. Delft, 18.01.2021).
- ‘A Sonderweg of Dutch Public Health? A conceptual history of heredity during the interwar years’, Annual Graduate History Conference (Oxford University, 10.06.2020).
- ‘Back to Bacon and Boyle: what about publishing trial and error?’ keynote address: LMB Graduate Symposium (University of Cambridge, 12.07.2019).
- ‘Malthus on Man: In Animals no Moral Restraint: Social and Environmental Reform around 1900’,
- P.S. Graduate colloquium (Utrecht University, 23.04.2019).
- ‘History versus Philosophy of Science: How Applied History Requires Bridging Descriptive and Normative Knowledge’, H.P.S. Peer Seminar (Utrecht University, 26.11.2019).
- With S. D. M. Gaillard, ‘Introducing a Journal of Trial and Error’, Gewina Woudschoten Conference for History of Science, Pecha Kucha format (Woudschoten, 22.06.2019).
- ‘What about a Journal of Trial and Error?’, Descartes Colloquium, (Utrecht University, 19.06.2019).
- ‘On success, at last’, International launch of the Journal of Trial and Error (Utrecht, 30.11.2020).
Podcast appearances
- With Susanna Bloem, ‘Faces of Open Science’, Road 2 Open Science Podcast (12.2022): https://open.spotify.com/episode/5s435lLwFcIPMjv6IxZugB?si=47bc2eda0c3b450d.