New Theme Grants Awarded by Netspar and Instituut Gak

Netspar and Instituut Gak have awarded three new Theme Grants. These grants will fund innovative research in the field of pensions and aging. Each grant amounts to €350,000 per research project. Each research project will last three to four years.

The Theme Grants were awarded after scientific review by the Scientific Council and advice from the Partner Research Council. It concerns the research of:

Antje Schmitt: self-employment and retirement (awarded and funded by Instituut Gak)

Antje Schmitt of the University of Groningen receives a theme grant for her research project Diversity of self-employment career trajectories as resources or risks for retirement anticipation, preparation and adjustment: the role of life-course factors and institutional context. Together with her research team, she examines how different self-employment career trajectories shape the way people prepare for retirement and adjust to life after retirement. The team also investigates the roles of financial resources, health, family circumstances and pension arrangements in these processes.

Mark Visser: pensions of informal carers (awarded and funded by Instituut Gak)

Mark Visser of Radboud University receives a theme grant for his research project No good deed goes unpunished: informal caregiving over the life course, pension accrual and pension income. He will examine why informal carers often build up less pension than others and who is most affected. The findings can help develop policies that better support informal carers.

Nikolaus Schweizer: improving collective pension investments (awarded and funded by Netspar)

Nikolaus Schweizer of Tilburg University receives a theme grant for the research project Collective investment and behavioral welfare economics, together with Anne Balter (Tilburg University), and Marlene Koch and Paulo Rodrigues (both Maastricht University). They will study how errors in measuring risk preferences and differences in risk capacity affect collective pension investments. The aim is to develop fairer investment strategies and better measurements of risk attitudes.

Netspar congratulates the researchers on receiving their Theme Grants and look forward to the contribution this research will make to a future-proof pension system. The intended start date for most projects is January 1, 2027.