Martijn
van der Meer

Historian of medicine and science, working on the history of public health as collective action

I study the history of public health as a window onto how modern societies organize collective life. I first became drawn to these questions during my BA in History at Utrecht University, where an exchange at University of Wisconsin–Madison (Medical History and Bioethics) introduced me to the field. During my MSc in the history of science, I initially specialized in the history of eugenics, evolutionary theory, and Malthusianism in the Netherlands. These interests led me to University of Oxford, where I wrote a thesis on the role of biological concepts in interwar Dutch public health debates. I later revised the chapter on Dutch eugenics into an essay, “Sown without care: Dutch eugenicists and their call for optimising developmental conditions, 1919–1939,” which received the Roy Porter Essay Prize from the Society for the Social History of Medicine (2022).

In summer 2020, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) funded my project “Safeguarding a healthy future: Dutch child health intervention between politics and practice, 1901–2020.” In this research, I examine the collective practices of weighing, vaccinating, and testing to understand how concerns about preschool children’s health generated shared forms of action in the emerging Dutch welfare state, and how preventive activities proliferated, became “social,” and reinforced particular ways of living together. I conduct this work at Erasmus University Rotterdam and Erasmus MC under the supervision of Ralf Futselaar and Timo Bolt, and received Science and Technology Studies training at WTMC (Netherlands Graduate School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture). In fall 2024, I was a visiting fellow at Harvard University, and in spring 2025 a visiting student researcher at the Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public at University of California, Berkeley. For presenting my research on infant mortality as a public issue, I received the Pieter van Foreest Prize for best PhD paper from the European Association for the History of Medicine and Health (2023).

Alongside medical history, I work on the historical sociology of late-modern science, especially research funding, academic publishing, peer review, career structures, and academic integrity. I’m committed to improving academia through interdisciplinary initiatives that foster a robust, diverse, reflexive, and democratic research culture. I currently act as president of the national representative body for PhDs (Promovendi Netwerk Nederland). Previously, I worked as a policy maker on responsible research at Tilburg University. Together with Stefan Gaillard, I was listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 (Science & Healthcare, 2024) for our work on the Journal of Trial and Error.

President : Promovendi Netwerk Nederland (PNN), [2025-now].

Librarian : Royal Dutch Association for Medicine (KNMG), [2025-now].

PhD researcher : Safeguarding a Healthy Future - preventive child health intervention in between politics and practice, 1901-1920, Erasmus University Rotterdam & Erasmus Medical Centre [2021-now].

Researcher and Lecturer : Programme for Medical Ethics, History, and Philosophy of Medicine, Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam [2024-now].

Visiting Student Researcher : Kavli Center for Ethics, Science and the Public, University of California at Berkeley [2025].

Visiting Fellow : History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge MA [2024].

Senior policy Advisor : research ethics, data management, open science, privacy, academic integrity, Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Tilburg University [2020-2024].

Policy Advisor : academic integrity and knowledge security, Erasmus Medcial Centre [2022].

Lecturer, Course developer, and coordinator : Utrecht University, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus Medical Centre

• ‘This thing Called Science’ (MSc-level) 2024, 2025, 2026
  

• ‘Scientific Integrity’ (PhD- and PI-level) 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026

• ‘Journal Club: Medical History’ (BA-level) 2022, 2023, 2024

• ‘Biopower: breeding feeding and bleeding for world domination’ (BA-level) 2022, 2023

• ‘History of Modern Societies’ (BA-level) 2022

• ‘Open Science and sociology of science’ (MSc-level) 2021, 2022, 2023

• ‘History and Sociology of Public Health’ (MSc-level) 2020

• ‘Scientific Revolution’ (BSc-level) 2019, 202

• ‘History of the Social Sciences’ (MSc-level) 2019
  

Freelance Journalist : Vrij Nederland, NRC. Projects on science, medicine, and society [2019-now].

Chair and co-founder : Center and Journal of Trial and Error, www.jtrialerror.com. International publication community aiming to explore uncertainty in science, and publish failed research in a reflective and meaningful manner [2018-2024].

Board member : Gewina - Belgisch Nederlands genootschap voor wetenschaps- en universiteitsgeschiedenis [2018-now].

Researcher : Faces of Open Science: a sociological analysis of Open Science, Open Science Programme, Utrecht University [2020-2022].

On how I think we can make academia better:

‘Je kunt niet objectief bepalen wat een ‘uitzonderlijk goed’ proefschrift is,’ Trouw (november 2025).

With Marjolijn Antheunis and Boudewijn Haverkort, ‘The Practicalities of a Partial Lottery to Allocate Research Funding’ Research Evaluation (2024) https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvae023

‘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 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.

with M.A. Burke, ‘To all graduate students: science is broken and you need to fix it’, DUB August 2020.

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

Geesteswetenschappers falen aan de lopende band’, DUB January 2020.

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 S.M. Gaillard, ‘Wetenschap, wees eens eerlijk over jezelf!’, DUB December 2019.

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).

On history of public health and biomedicine:

‘When prevention became social: public health atomism and the assemblage of a National Immunisation Programme in the Netherlands, 1872–1959’ Medical History (2026). doi:10.1017/mdh.2025.10049

‘Bound by Proximity: Polio Vaccination Refusal and the Discovery of the Dutch Bible Belt’ Journal of Medical Humanities (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-025-09990-1

‘On the Significance of Place: Vaccination Refusal as a Situated Phenomenon’ Journal of Trial & Error, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.36850/dfab-4bcf

With Noortje Jacobs, ‘When Infant Mortality was Born: Dutch Preventive Child Health Care without the State, 1890-1930’ European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health 80:1 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1163/26667711-bja10039

‘Sown Without Care: Dutch Eugenicisits and Their Call for Optimising Developmental Conditions, 1919-1938’ Social History of Medicine
(2024)https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkae002.

‘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).

‘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).

> ‘How Prevention Became Social: Public Health Atomism and the Assemblage of the Dutch Immunization Programme’ Working Group for the History of Medicine, Harvard University (7.03.2025).

> ‘Bound by Proximity: Dutch Vaccine Refusal and the Discovery of the Dutch Bible Belt’ STS and History of Science Seminar, UC Berkeley (5.03.2025).

> ‘Sown without Care: Dutch Eugenicists and their call for environmental reform’ Keynote address: Biannual Meeting of the Society for the Social History of Medicine (18.07.2024).

> ‘ How child health clinics reconfigured everyday interactions between 1900 and 1940: Methodological reflections on reconstructing collective practices in the past’, Biannual conference for History of Science in Belgium and the Netherlands (21.6.2024).

> ‘An uncomfortable history of the biomedical career’, Biomedisch Interfacultair congres (19.04.2024).

> With Noortje Jacobs, ‘A good mother enters the clinic: How Dutch preventive child health care ordered everyday lives, 1900-1940’ Centre for History in Public Health: London School for Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (23.04.2024)

> With Noortje Jacobs, ‘When Infant Mortality Was Born: Dutch Preventive Child Health Care without the State, 1890-1930’ Egenis Seminar, University of Exeter (20.05.2024).

> ‘Slordig gezaaide akkers? Nederlandse eugenetici tussen biologische en sociale maakbaarheid,’ Nederlandse Vereniging voor Psychiatrie (11.04.2024).

> ‘Navigating “Open Science.” What it is, can be, and should be‘, invited speaker: Open Statistics (04.12.2023).

> ‘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 (Woudschoten, 22.06.2019).

> ‘What about a Journal of Trial and Error?’, Descartes Colloquium, (Utrecht University, 19.06.2019).