NWO XS grants for Christina Czura, Job de Grefte and Evert de Haan

The Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) is happy to announce that FEB-researchers Kristina Czura, Job de Grefte and Evert de Haan have each received a grant of € 50,000 from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for new research projects. The projects focus on a wide variety of topics: tackling menstrual stigma for female well-being in Nepal, individual and collective responsibilities in the Dutch nitrogen crisis, and the impact of the Dutch online gambling market liberalization and subsequent advertising restrictions.

Tackling menstrual stigma for female well-being in Nepal

Kristina Czura, associate professor at FEB’s Department of Economics, Econometrics and Finance, received the grant for her project titled ‘Breaking Taboos, Building Futures: Tackling Menstrual Stigma for Improved Education and Empowerment in Nepal’. Especially in low-income countries, menstrual stigma remains a significant barrier to female health and education. Despite efforts to eliminate harmful practices, deep-rooted cultural stigmas persist and continue to undermine policies for female well-being. While recent research links harmful social norms to stigma, identifying the root-causes of stigma and establishing causality has proven challenging. Czura’s project aims to evaluate whether school-based anti-stigma interventions can reduce menstrual stigma, and in turn enhance psychosocial well-being and educational outcomes. Using cutting-edge experimental economics methods to identify norms and causality, her project will illuminate these complex relations in collaboration with an NGO in Nepal.

Individual and collective responsibilities in the Dutch nitrogen crisis

Job de Grefte, assistant professor at FEB’s Department of Economics, Econometrics and Finance, received the grant for his project titled ‘Beyond the Blame Game: Individual and Collective Responsibilities in the Dutch Nitrogen Crisis’. The Dutch nitrogen crisis highlights a fundamental problem: without clearly defined moral responsibilities, stakeholders—farmers, government, and consumers—end up blaming each other instead of taking action. In his project, De Grefte aims to develop a framework that prioritizes and coordinates the moral responsibilities of both individual and institutional stakeholders, thereby addressing the crisis more effectively. By utilizing advances in collective action theory, he hopes to clarify how individual and collective responsibilities interact and overlap. His theoretically innovative approach provides a much-needed foundation for justifying nitrogen-related policy measures and offers a model that can be applied to other sustainability challenges in the future.

Investigating the Impact of the Dutch Online Gambling Market Liberalization

Evert de Haan, associate professor at FEB’s Department of Marketing, received the grant for his project titled ‘Investigating the Impact of the Dutch Online Gambling Market Liberalization and Subsequent Advertising Restrictions’. In 2021, the Dutch online gambling market was liberalized to regulate the industry, which had long been dominated by international operators. The goal of liberalization, alongside increased regulatory oversight, was to mitigate issues such as gamblers’ debt and addiction. Following the market's liberalization, numerous new Dutch online gambling platforms emerged, with intensive advertising efforts to attract players. These advertisements were later subjected to restrictions, including limitations on target audiences, timing, messaging, and the use of celebrities. In his research, De Haan seeks to investigate whether the liberalization and the subsequent advertising regulations have effectively reduced the societal and personal harms associated with gambling. De Haan’s grant from the NWO will be supplemented by the Customer Insights Center, one of FEB’s Centres of Expertise, so that a post-doc can be appointed within the project.

The NWO Open Competition

With the NWO Open Competition-SSH, NWO Social Sciences and Humanities wants to offer researchers the opportunity to carry out research into a subject of their own choosing without any thematic constraints. The aim is to facilitate excellent, non-programmed, curiosity-driven research that primarily addresses a social sciences or humanities research question and research problem.

Questions? Please contact Kristina Czura, Job de Grefte or Evert de Haan.