Radboud University: Veni grants for five Radboud researchers

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Veni grant to five young researchers of the Radboud University. With this grant of up to 280.000 euro they can further elaborate their own ideas during a period of three years.

Veni is aimed at excellent researchers who recently obtained their doctorate. Together with Vidi and Vici, Veni is part of the NWO Talent Programme, and is awarded every year. In 2021, 89 researchers from the science domains Science (ENW) and Health Research and Developement (ZonMw) received the grant, eight of them were from Radboud University and the Radboud University Medical center. A total of 78 researchers from the domains Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and Applied and Engineering Sciences (AES) are now being added to this.

Fathers combining work and care
Stéfanie André, Radboud University

Although fathers and mothers increasingly aspire to share working hours and care responsibilities equally, this often seems not to happen in practice. Many fathers work more hours and are less involved in childcare than they would like. This could change if they used care-related work arrangements like part-time work, parental leave, flexible working and homeworking. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this study aims to clarify the factors that influence the relationship between fathers’ work-care ambition and behaviour at four levels (the household, friends and family, work and country), so that we can learn how to make combining work and care easier.

From common ground to battleground? Public perceptions of bias in impartial institutions
Erika van Elsas, Radboud University

Supposedly impartial institutions – such as courts, the police, and universities – are often accused of bias. But to what extent do citizens perceive these institutions as biased, and where do such bias perceptions come from? This project answers these questions by combining content analysis, original survey data and experiments.

When language is not a given
dr. I.L. Lammertink, Radboud University

Language acquisition is not a given for every child. Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have severe difficulties acquiring language without a clear cause. This project investigates how the nature of children’s language input affects the ease with which children learn language. This project is unique because it focuses on the role that peer language input rather than parental or teacher input plays during language development. This question is particularly relevant in the educational context of Dutch children with DLD where peer languages may differ between children with DLD enrolled in special education versus regular education.

The power of inaction and ambivalence in transnational refugee governance: EU-actors and the contested return of Syrian refugees from Lebanon and Turkey
Nora Stel, Radboud University

Lebanon and Turkey increasingly pressure the Syrian refugees they host to return to their country of origin. But human rights organizations indicate that returnees risk torture and death in Syria. Current returns therefore often defy international refugee law. This project investigates how such contested return dynamics are influenced by EU-actors’ positioning. Specifically, by studying what EU-actors do not say or do in the face of contested refugee returns in Lebanon and Turkey, it develops a fundamentally new perspective on transnational refugee governance that foregrounds inaction and ambivalence as exercises of power.

Making the Dutch economic “Golden Age”
Joris van den Tol, Radboud University

This project looks beyond the usual suspects of merchants, and studies the role of industry in the early modern Dutch economy. This is not all about economic production; industry’s role in deciding regulations and determining import duties was at least as crucial for their contribution.