Pillarisation (verzuiling in Dutch) is a term used to describe the politico-denominational segregation of Dutch and Belgian society. These societies were (and in some areas, still are) "vertically" divided into several segments or "pillars" (zuilen, singular: zuil) according to different religions or ideologies. These pillars all had their own social institutions: their own newspapers, broadcasting organisations, political parties, trade unions, banks, schools, hospitals, universities, scouting organisations and sports clubs. Some companies even hired only personnel of a specific religion or ideology. This led to a situation where many people had no personal contact with people from another pillar.

The Netherlands had (at least) three pillars: Protestant, Catholic and Social-democratic. Almost all Catholics were part of the Catholic pillar. Orthodox and conservative Protestants joined the Protestant pillar, industrial workers and Jews were part of the Socialist pillar, while more latitudinarian Protestants, atheists and Orangists were pillarless. The Protestant party Christian Historical Union (formed in 1908) did not organise a pillar of its own but linked itself to the Protestant pillar shaped by the Anti Revolutionary Party. Pillarisation was originally initiated by the Anti Revolutionary Party, who based it on their philosophy of sphere sovereignty. People in the Socialist pillar were mainly working-class. People who were not associated with one of these pillars, mainly middle and upper class latitudinarian Protestants and atheists set up their own pillar: the general pillar. Ties between general organisations were a lot weaker. The political parties usually associated with this pillar were the liberal Free-minded Democratic League (VDB) and Liberal State Party (LSP), although these parties opposed pillarisation. Communists, Humanist and ultra-orthodox Protestants also set up similar organisations; however, such groups were a lot smaller.

Peter Beyer(born 9 May 1952, in Hanover, Lower Saxony) is a German Professor for Cell Biology at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Freiburg. He is known as co-inventor of the Golden rice, together with Ingo Potrykus from the ETH Zurich

Peter Beyer studied Biology at the universities of Marburg and Freiburg. In 1981 he was awarded his doctorate in Cell Biology from the University of Freiburg and received his postdoctoral lecture qualification in 2000. Afterwards he was appointed Professor for Cell Biology at the Faculty of Biology. Since 2001 Beyer is Vice-Director Plant Biotechnology of the Centre for Applied Biosciences (ZAB) in Freiburg. Starting 2005 Peter Beyer became Principal Investigator in the ProVitaMinRice Consortium, a program funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and one of the selected Grand Challenges in Global Health projects. The project «Engineering Rice for High Beta-Carotene, Vitamin E and Enhanced Iron and Zinc Bioavailability», designed to further biofortify Golden Rice with other vital micronutrients has been awarded 11.3 Million USD to achieve its goals. Research is handled by a consortium of seven laboratories in a number of countries. Apart from Beyer's group the project involves groups from Baylor College of Medicine, Michigan State University, the International Rice Research Institute and PhilRice, both in the Philippines, the Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.