Another five UG researchers have been awarded a Veni grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The university has been awarded a total of twelve grants.
The researchers, who all recently got their PhD, will receive a maximum of 280,000 euros to further develop their research ideas over the next three years.
At the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Joost van de Brake will study why and when working in multiple teams has either a negative or a positive effect. Also at FEB, Daniel te Kaat will be studying how unconventional monetary instruments impact economies with declining credit volumes.
At the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences (BSS), Susan Niessen wants to find out how simple and transparent algorithms are designed and used and what their effect is on valid and fair test use in psychology.
Optimism
Charlotte Vrijen, also at BSS, studies optimism. Why are some people optimistic while others aren’t? She specifically studies to what degree parents pass optimism on to their children.
Frank Klont with the Faculty of Science and Engineering studies human beings’ exposure to chemicals. Instead of using standard questionnaires, he wants to measure the exposure on a molecular level, hoping to better understand the impact chemicals have on our bodies.
Hack
These grants, for the Social Sciences and Humanities and Applied and Technical Sciences, are part of the second set of grants of 2021 that still needed to be awarded. The NWO’s system was hacked in February of last year, which means the grant application process was on hold for nearly two months. The organisation therefore decided to adjust their planning in March of last year.
Of the total of 759 applications for a Veni grant in 2021, 167 were granted funding.