Moniek Buijzen appointed professor of Communication and Behavioural Change

Moniek Buijzen has an impressive track record. After receiving a grant from the European Research Council (ERC), she has spent the past years working on a Consolidator project. In 2019, she was awarded a prestigious NWO-VICI grant for her project ‘SocialMovez: Effective and Responsible Health Campaigns for Adolescents Using Online Social Networks’. She will carry out this five-year research project at EUR, where she will conduct research into how health campaigns for youth can be more effectively disseminated, using their social networks.

‘We are pleased that professor Buijzen has joined ESSB. With her interdisciplinary approach and her extensive expertise in the field of communications technology, she will play an important connecting role at Erasmus University in the field of digitalisation and its impact on society,’ said Rector Magnificus, Rutger Engels.

Team science and an interdisciplinary approach

Buijzen’s research will study how the benefits of digital technology can be optimally used for a healthy and sustainable lifestyle, while keeping potential risks at a minimum. In her work, she aims for a continuous interaction between the development of theory, methodological advances, and innovative technological applications. Her ‘team science’ approach is interdisciplinary, uniting elements from the fields of social sciences, health sciences, computer sciences and law. An additional aspect is impact on society, which engages students and parties in civil society. This is an important cornerstone of her research and teachings.

 ‘Developments in communication technology open up unprecedented opportunities for healthy and sustainable ways of changing behaviour. Our team looks for ways to maximise the benefits offered by these opportunities, while simultaneously minimising the risks. This requires an interdisciplinary approach with, among others, social scientists, computer scientists and lawyers. Rotterdam is a city I love, and I’m looking forward to starting my work together with my team at Erasmus University,’ commented Moniek Buijzen.

Connecting research excellence and societal impact

Professor Buijzen’s arrival is an outstanding addition complementing the Behavioural Change pillar of ESSB’s strategy, Meeting the Future Society. Her interdisciplinary approach also shares common ground with the Organisational Dynamics in the Digital Society and the Vital Cities and Citizens pillars. With her background as an interdisciplinary scientist who connects research and impact on society, Buijzen’s qualities are a highly suitable match for the faculty’s interdisciplinary and socially-oriented profile.

About Moniek Buijzen
Moniek Buijzen (1973) received her doctorate at the University of Amsterdam in 2003. She subsequently worked at this same institution as an assistant professor and an associate professor. From 2012 to 2019, she was a professor and chair of the Communication Science research programme at Radboud University’s Behavioural Science Institute (BSI). She received a prestigious Vici grant in 2019 from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for a five-year research project studying the implementation of health campaigns through online social networks used by young people. Buijzen had previously received an NWO Veni grant (2003) and a Vidi grant (2008) for talented junior researchers, and a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Her work has been recognised with several awards from the International Communication Association, the International Conference on Research in Advertising, and the Child and Teen Consumption Conference. 

In addition to teaching and research, Buijzen is also actively involved in forging links between science and practice. Together with her colleague Dr Esther Rozendaal, she established the accessible and appealing online portal Bitescience.com in 2011. This is a portal for scientific knowledge on communications and media.