'Together with the management team, I do my best to make the department and the people who work there function as well and as pleasantly as possible.'
Career
In addition, he conducts research and teaches. In particular, his research deals with the persuasive influence of disinformation: the effects of disinformation on public perception and behavior. The purpose of disinformation is often not so much to make people believe things, but to influence their opinions and behavior. In this, disinformation resembles advertising. The techniques used are also often the same. Ivar Vermeulen has done a lot of research in the past on how advertising works, and he can put this knowledge to good use to do something against the effects of disinformation. His teaching is also about persuasive communication, but specifically in the context of marketing and to bring about positive behavioral changes.
Ivar studied methods theory at the University of Amsterdam. He also received his doctorate there in 2003, as a computational social scientist. Since coming to VU Amsterdam in 2004, he has primarily researched - and taught - persuasive communication. Between 2016 and 2022, he was director of the Network Institute: a large interdisciplinary research institute with mostly computational, linguistic, and social scientists. Here his hybrid science background came in handy. He then served as research manager of the department he now heads.
What do you hope to contribute to the new faculty?
"I have a multidisciplinary background myself, and have managed an interdisciplinary institute. I was also involved in many initiatives around research quality and Open Science. In the new faculty, new forms of collaboration will arise again, and we need to think about how to do that in a productive, responsible and high-quality way. I hope to make my contribution to that.'
