About me

I work on the history of public health as an example of things are done together in modern socities. During my Bachelor in History at Utrecht University, I got interested in this topic as an exchange student at the Medical History and Bioethics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I initially specialised in the history of eugenics, evolutionary theory, and Malthusianism in the Netherlands during my MSc in history of science at Utrecht University. These topics motivated me to further explore the history of population health at Oxford University and write a thesis on the role of biological concepts in interwar Dutch public health debates. I revised its chapter on the history of Dutch eugenics as an essay titled ‘Sown without care: Dutch eugenicists and their call for optimising developmental conditions, 1919-1939’. For this manuscript I received the Roy Porter Essay prize from the Society for Social History of Medicine in 2022. The piece is currently under review for publication in Social History of Medicine.

During the summer of 2020, the Dutch Scientific Council (NWO) awarded me funding for my project “Safeguarding a healthy future: Dutch child health intervention between politics and practice 1901-2020.” Focussing on the collective practices of weighing, vaccinating, and testing, I investigate how and why pre-school children motived collective activities in the emerging Dutch welfare state. I use this history to understand why and how certain preventive activity proliferated, became ‘social,’ and transported and reïnforced norms about health, gender, family life, and citizenship. I do this research at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Erasmus MC under supervision of Noortje Jacobs, Ralf Futselaar, and Timo Bolt. I receive training in Science and Technology Studies at WTMC - the Netherlands Graduate School of Science, Technology, and Modern Culture. For presenting my research on infant mortality as a public issue, I received the Pieter van Foreest prize for best PhD-presentation from the Earopean Association for the History of Medicine and Health in 2023.

Besides my research into medical history, I am interested in the historical sociology of late modern science, particularly of research funding, academic publishing culture, peer review, academic career structures, and academic integrity. I deeply care about improving the academic system through interdisciplinary projects fostering a robust, diverse, reflexice, and democratic research culture. Besides my research, I work as a policy maker focused on responsible research at Tilburg University. I also act as chair of the Centre of Trial and Error, which I co-founded.

Pubs

For Digitaal Universiteitsblad Utrecht University (DUB), Utrecht University’s Magazine

‘Waarom een kerncurriculum helpt bij het bestrijden van de volgende pandemie’, DUB November 2020.

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.

Other venues

With J. Schaafsma, ´Universiteiten zitten te slapen, grote uitgeverijen gaan er met hun data vandoor,´ NRC Handelsblad (May 2022).

With J. Schaafsma, '"Pure" Misery: how Open Access makes us more dependent on big publishers,' Univers (November 2021).

With S. de Knecht, L. Brinkman & F. Miedema, ‘(Re)shaping the academic self: connecting education with open science’, published as white paper: https://bit.ly/3f2aNaI.

‘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 2.2 (September 2021).

For the Journal of the Trial and Error

‘How “Recognition and Rewards” in Dutch academia turned metrics into incentives,’ Blog of Trial and Error (March 2023): https://doi.org/10.36850/p761-ey93.

with Sean Devine, Max Bautista Perpinyà, Valentine Delrue, Stefan Gaillard, Thomas F.K. Jorna, Martijn van der Meer, Lottricia Millett, Chelsea Pozzebon, and Jobke Visser [equal contribution], ‘Bridging the gap between what is researched and what is published’, Journal of Trial and Error 1.1 (November 2020): https://doi.org/10.36850/ed1.

‘Introducing the Journal of Trial and Error to Historians of Science’, Shells and Pebbles, February 2020.

with M. Bautista Perpinyà, S. Galliard, N. Hamman, J. Visser & D. Calveri, [equal contribution] ‘Manifesto for Trial and Error in Science’ on jtrialerror.com. (2019).

**Several publications in and with Historisch Tijdschrift Aanzet (HTA)**

‘Historici – stop met wenen en kom uw loopgraven uit!, HTA 35.3 (June 2021).

‘De gekke mensen van vroeger: essay-review “Pest en Cholera: een bloedstollende geschiedenis van de geneeskunde”, HTA 35.1 (2020).

‘Geschiedenis, Filosofie én Gezondheidszorg? Review-essay “Basisboek Geschiedenis en Filosofie van de Gezondheidswetenschappen”’, HTA 33.2 (2019).

‘Historici, hedendaagse politiek, en beschuldigingen van 20ste eeuws racisme’, HTA34.3 (2019).

Edited special issue, ‘Themanummer Wetenschapsgeschiedenis’, HTA 33.2 (2019).

‘Medisch Materiaal: een historische interpretatie van patiëntendossiers als bijdrage aan het bio-ethisch debat over objectivering’, HTA 33.3 (2017).

with M. Van der Pluijm, ‘Een pleidooi voor geschiedwetenschap als ambacht’, HTA 32.2 (2016).

For Vrij Nederland

with M.S. Meijer. ‘Aan ziekte wordt verdiend, aan preventie niet: waarom voorkomen niet altijd beter lijkt dan genezen’, Vrij Nederland 80.10, 2020.

with M.S. Meijer. ‘Flat Earth: Moedig vanuit de Marge’, Vrij Nederland 80.1., 2020.

Talks

Previous
> ‘Infant mortality as a public problem’, invited speaker: HHH - medical history meets historical demography (10.3.2023)

> ‘Preventie als sociaal project’, invited speaker: Leergroep ontwikkelkansen BMC (9.3.2023)

> ‘CHALLENGING TUBERCULOSIS—building a consensus on environmental causes during the Dutch interwar years’, Contested Expertise (Gewina, 16-17.06.2022)

> ‘Academic integrity in the context of systemic change’, Pitch @ Summer Seminar on Research Integrity (VU Amsterdam, 26.08.2021).

> ‘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).

> ‘Doing Good Science in a Compromising Context’, invited speaker: Seminar of Apollo Society for Translational Medicine (U.M.C. Utrecht, 25.06.2021).

> ‘Wetenschap als geïnstitutionaliseerd vertrouwen’, Invited speaker: VeerEvents (UTwente, 18.02.2021).

> ‘We should rethink big-discovery-science’, Material Pioneers symposium III (T.U. Delft, 18.01.2021).

> ‘Success, at last’, International launch of the Journal of Trial and Error (Utrecht, 30.11.2020).

> ‘A Sonderweg of Dutch Public Health? A conceptual history of heredity during the interwar years’, Annual Graduate History Conference (Oxford University, 10.06.2020).

> ‘Malthus on Man: In Animals no Moral Restraint: Social and Environmental Reform around 1900’, HPS Graduate colloquium (Utrecht University, 23.04.2019).

> ‘History versus Philosophy of Science: How Applied History Requires Bridging Descriptive and Normative Knowledge’, HPS. Peer Seminar (Utrecht University, 26.11.2019).

> with M. Bautista Perpinyà, ‘Back to Bacon and Boyle: what about publishing trial and error?’, keynote address, LMB Graduate Symposium (University of Cambridge, 12.07.2019).

> 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).

This is me in a college residence - preparing my first academic talk at Cambridge. It went okay-ish.

Martijn
van der Meer

PhD-Researcher on history of public health & policy advisor on responsible research

About me