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Tilburg researchers receive grant for Social Sciences and Humanities research

Published: 09th August 2022 Last updated: 09th August 2022

Bart Bronnenberg, Jan Fransoo, Daan van Soest, and Caroline Vander Stichele have each received an NWO grant with their research groups. They will use it to fund research on consumer behavior and sustainable choices, the role of logistics in keeping groceries affordable, the impact of religious vocabularies on the discussion on climate change, and the effectiveness of financial support in promoting long-term self-reliance in Africa, respectively.

The NWO Social Sciences and Humanities Domain Board has honored a total of 58 of the 166 research proposals in the Open Competition – SSH 2021 round. A total of € 39 million has been awarded for non-programmed, curiosity-driven research.

The four projects

Getting consumers to switch to more sustainable and healthier food 

Bart Bronnenberg KNAW

Bart Bronnenberg, Professor of Marketing, conducts research into how consumers develop preferences for sustainable and healthy food options. To this end, he studies the grocery purchases of individual consumers over the past two decades, during which many of such food options were introduced.

He will investigate to what extent preferences are formed or are intrinsically present, and whether the marketing strategies affect long-term preferences. The findings will be used to propose policy to stimulate sustainable food choices.

Digitizing mom and pop’s supply chain: Competitiveness of independent retailers in developing countries

Jan Fransoo, Professor of Operational and Logistics Management, wants to offer solutions to low-income consumers, who pay too much for their daily groceries. Improving the retail channel where they buy their groceries should mitigate the problem. He investigates how smartphone-based technologies can reduce logistic costs.

Jan Fransoo

Based on detailed transactional data of delivery vehicles, sales agents, and replenishment orders, the researchers study the impact of this rapid digitization.

Apocalypse and climate change

Caroline Vander Stichele

Caroline Vander Stichele, Professor of Bible and Culture’s project focuses on present-day religious vocabularies that have become part of our western cultural and scientific reservoir and are used in the context of climate change. It aims to analyse how these vocabularies affect their users’ interpretations and attitudes. The presence of such vocabularies is researched within groups that are active on the social media in the Netherlands and share a common interest in climate change. .

Displaced and disheartened – helping refugees take back control of their lives

Daan van Soest, Professor of Economics and Behavior, wants to help refugees in Africa regain control of their own lives as quickly as possible, in collaboration with Patricio Dalton and Till Wicker. This is quite a challenge since trauma, poverty, and stress tend to lower ambitions as well as the ability to implement intended plans. Using an experiment in Ugandan refugee camps, this research investigates how to best increase the effectiveness of financial support in promoting long-term self-reliance.

Open Competition

The objective of the SSH Open Competition is to promote excellent, non-programmed, curiosity-driven research that primarily addresses a social sciences or humanities research question and research problem. Researchers can apply for funding for different types of research: small or large research projects, and for individual projects or for research groups. Research can have a disciplinary, interdisciplinary or cross-domain character. The research can be aimed at international collaboration between researchers and/or research groups.

More information on the NWO and on projects granted is available here.