Videos

For many, being young is the most beautiful time in life. But did you know that 1 in 5 children is born into poverty? They are given fewer opportunities in life. In order to better support such youngsters in Ghent, Wendy Eerdekens (Arteveldehogeschool) wants to improve the cooperation between the many initiatives in aid and youth work. 

How do you tell your child that you are getting a divorce? How do you arrange parenthood? And how can your child best organise his/her life in two houses? There is a lot to deal with when you get divorced. In order to support parents and children, Liesbet De Lepeleire and her colleagues developed 'scheidingskoffer.be': a Dutch website with an answer to almost all your questions. 

'Design thinking', 'co-creation', 'entrepreneurship', ... Do you also roll your eyes when you hear those hip buzzwords? But what if Tom Demuynck told you that these concepts could be the key to better education.

"With games you can motivate young people for school", according to Liese Missinne and her colleagues at the Artevelde University of Applied Sciences. They developed such a game together with young people. This is necessary because more than 1 in 8 Flemish youngsters drop out of school. She explains in this video exactly what the game entails.

For children with autism or attention or motor disorders, it is quite a challenge to participate in activities such as playing tag, taking a test, or staying over at a friend's house. Marieke Coussens and her colleagues mapped the barriers that such young children experience. This knowledge is important to be able to break down those barriers and really allow these children to participate.

Every three seconds, someone in the world is diagnosed with dementia. But what causes it? Dementia can be caused by diseases such as Alzheimer's & Parkinson's. The only way to find out the exact cause is by studying the brain tissue of a patient after his death 🧠  Yaël Hirschberg hopes to develop a method of identifying this earlier so that a patient can receive targeted care even before the first symptoms of dementia appear. Watch her explain how  

"The cemetery was the place where Jewish life was concentrated at the end. It was the place where people went to sunbathe, children had to play, ..." Literature scholar Annelies Augustyns (VUB - UAntwerp - FWO) studied German-Jewish diaries from WWII for her PhD. These offer a glimpse into the "everyday" life of Jews in the Third Reich.

Hard sciences, such as physics, understand very well how the material world works and have contributed to enormous technological progress. But the social sciences, such as economics or sociology, do not seem to understand as well how the social world - human society - works. Thus, we apparently do not know how to build a peaceful and prosperous society worldwide. Michael Bauwens (UAntwerpen) tries to find out which fundamental assumptions researchers should use to do social science.

Radiation can save the lives of people with head and neck cancer. Unfortunately, many patients develop swallowing disorders as a result of the treatment, which makes it impossible for them to eat solid food. Leen Van den Steen (UAntwerpen - UZA) wants to help them. How? With tongue strength training.

Biologist Sébastjen Schoenaers (UAntwerpen) watches his son Ferre grow rapidly. Yet Ferre grows 150 times slower than an ordinary corn leaf 🌱 We still don't understand how plants do this. Sébastjen zooms in on the plant up to molecular level to figure out how it really grows 🔬 This can help us grow plants better and faster.

Heart failure patients have a lot of trouble with physical exertion. They can barely even walk the dog. To improve their condition, they can follow training programs in the hospital. But more than half of the patients hardly benefit from them. Cardiologist in training Isabel Witvrouwen (UAntwerpen - University Hospital Antwerp) is trying to find out why.

In Belgium and the Netherlands, more than 1,000 people suffer from DFNA9, a condition that causes hereditary hearing loss and balance disorders. DFNA9 is due to an error in the DNA of the ear. Dorien Verdoodt (UAntwerp) is conducting research into a new therapy based on the revolutionary Crispr genetic technique. In this way, she hopes to be able to cure hereditary hearing loss in the future with a syringe in the ear.