astronomy

Robert van Voren

Robert van Voren is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Robert van Voren rather than just read about it. In short: Robert van Voren (publishing pseudonym of Johannes Baks, Dutch: Johannes Bax, Lithuanian: Johannesas Baksas, born 25 July 1959, Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a Dutch human rights activist, sovietologist and historian. He is a professor of Soviet and post-Soviet studies in the Ilia State University in Tbilisi (Georgia) and in the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas (Lithuania) as well as a visiting professor at Unive…

Key takeaways

Robert van Voren belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Robert van Voren to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Robert van Voren from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Robert van Voren (publishing pseudonym of Johannes Baks, Dutch: Johannes Bax, Lithuanian: Johannesas Baksas, born 25 July 1959, Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a Dutch human rights activist, sovietologist and historian. He is a professor of Soviet and post-Soviet studies in the Ilia State University in Tbilisi (Georgia) and in the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas (Lithuania) as well as a visiting professor at University of Silezia, Katowice, Poland. He is also Chief Executive of the international foundation Human Rights in Mental Health-Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry and Executive Director of the Andrei Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania.

Education Graduated from the Marnix Gymnasium in Rotterdam in 1979, and in 1986 achieved a master's degree at the University of Amsterdam in Modern and Theoretical History with a specialization in Soviet History with Russian language. Robert van Voren defended his PhD in Political Sciences at Kaunas Vytautas Magnus University in October, 2010.

Career From 1978 to 1987, Robert van Voren worked as a Secretary of the Podrabniek Fund in The Netherlands. 1978-1989 he was an Associate of the Bukovsky Foundation in Amsterdam, where he also became a Board Member in 1988-1989. He was a founding member of the International Association on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry (IAPUP) in 1980. Since 1980, he also travelled frequently to the USSR to meet with dissidents and relatives of political prisoners. On average, he would make four trips per year. The goal was to deliver humanitarian aid, collect evidence on human rights violations and smuggle samizdat out of the country. He was arrested in 1983, but still managed to continue traveling to the USSR until its disintegration. Since 1986, Robert van Voren has been the Secretary-General of the International Association on the Political Use of Psychiatry (renamed in 1991 into Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry, in 2005 into the Global Initiative on Psychiatry, and to Human Rights in Mental Health-FGIP in 2014). Between 1991 and 1997, he worked as a Coordinator of Western Aid to Psychiatry of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, and in during 1994-1997 he was the Permanent Representative of Ukraine in the Benelux for Humanitarian Affairs. Since 1994, Robert van Voren has been the Board Member of the Kyiv Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Totalitarianism and Civil War. In 1994, he also founded the Ukrainian Information Center in the Netherlands, where he also became a Board Member from 1997 to 1998. 1996-1997 he was also a Board Member of the Second World Center. From 1996 to 1999 he was among the members of the Committee on Mental Health of the Netherlands International Health Platform. Between 1996 and 2010 he also worked as a Secretary/Treasurer of the publishing house "Sphere" in Kyiv, Ukraine. Since 2010, Robert van Voren is the Patron of the Gladys School for Community Health Work and Development in the Gampaha District, Sri Lanka. From 2011 to 2013, he was the Chairman of the Board of the Themis Foundation for Prison Reform, and from 2013 to 2017 he was the Director there. Between 2013 and 2015, he was a Member of the Board of the Netwerk International Mental Health in The Netherlands as well as the Vice-President for Europe at the World Federation for Mental Health. Robert van Voren has been a Member of the Board of Advisors of the Charity "Rights in Russia" in the United Kingdom since 2013. Since 2014, he has been the Chairman of the Board of the "Foundation to Preserve History of Maidan" in Kyiv, and since 2015 - a Patron of the BEARR Trust, United Kingdom. From 2015 to 2017, Robert van Voren was the Vice President of the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) for constituency development, and the Chairman of the Human Rights and Ethics Committee of the WFMH. From 2017 to 2020, he was in the board of the World Federation for Mental Health, and since 2016, he has been on the board of the Penal Reform International (PRI) in the United Kingdom. In addition, Robert van Voren has been active in academic field – as a professor, as a publishing scientist, and as a manager of different academic departments in various universities. He is the Executive Director of the Andrei Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development at Vytautas Magnus University. In 2022, Robert van Voren was awarded the Pardes Humanitarian Prize in Mental Health.

References

Sources

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Robert van Voren

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Robert van Voren claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Robert van Voren before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Robert van Voren ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Robert van Voren

In research: Robert van Voren appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Robert van Voren in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Robert van Voren is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1959 births, 20th-century Canadian male writers, 20th-century Dutch writers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Robert van Voren outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Robert van Voren in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Robert van Voren means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Robert van Voren out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Robert van Voren in simple terms?

Why does Robert van Voren matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Robert van Voren?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Robert van Voren.