Netspar Thesis Awards 2025 have been announced
Lisa Brüggen, Martijn de Werd, Madi Mangan, Mathijs van Dijk, Andries de Grip, Jelle Strikwerda and Jens Robben
During Pension Day 2025 in Utrecht, the winners of the Netspar Thesis Awards 2025 have been announced. With these annual awards, Netspar recognizes outstanding academic work by young researchers in the field of pensions and aging.
The jury praised the high quality of both the MSc and PhD theses submitted and emphasized their relevance to the pension debate and policymaking in the Netherlands and beyond.
Winners 2025
The winners of the Netspar Thesis Awards 2025 are: Vatsal Desai (Simon Fraser University, Canada) and Jens Robben (KU Leuven).
Vatsal Desai won in the MSc award category with his thesis “Generalized design framework for collective defined contribution pension plans and benefit smoothing mechanisms”. In his master’s thesis, Desai addresses one of the biggest challenges within collective DC schemes: how to deal with financial shocks? His innovative framework combines immediate recognition of shocks with smoothing over time. This creates a spectrum of possibilities for pension funds to balance stability, transparency, and intergenerational fairness. The jury was impressed by the careful analyses, the rich simulations, and the direct applicability to the Dutch pension debate in light of the Future of Pensions Act (Wet toekomst pensioenen).
Jens Robben won an award in the PhD category with his thesis “Insights from fine-grained data for actuarial applications in mortality modeling and non-life reserving”. Robben’s dissertation consists of four research projects that address key questions in actuarial science. His work focuses on, among other things, the effects of pandemics on mortality projections, shocks in mortality scenarios, and the short-term impact of climate change on mortality in small regions across Europe. His innovative methods and use of fine-grained data provided insights that are both academically original and policy-relevant. Three of the four studies have already been published in international academic journals.
The winning theses stand out for their originality, academic quality, and direct relevance to the pension system and actuarial practice.
Recognition
The jury complimented the supervisors and theme coordinators on the high quality of the entries. These further came from:
Jingfei Sun, Simon Fraser University (MSc)
“Optimal hurdle rate and investment policies in lifetime pension pools”
Martijn de Werd, Groningen University (MSc)
“On the Behaviour of Retired Couples in the Face of Uncertain Mortality”
Madi Mangan, VU Amsterdam (PhD)
“Micro Effects of Macroprudential Policies”
Jelle Strikwerda, Utrecht University (PhD)
“More than numbers: how communication can support pension decision making”
Yeorim Kim, VU Amsterdam (PhD)
“Micro studies of Macroprudential policies using loan-level data”
Netspar warmly congratulates Vatsal and Jens once again and thanks to all nominees for their contributions!