Rosa Kösters wins Instituut Gak-KNAW Award 2026
Over the coming years, Rosa Kösters will be conducting research into various citizens’ collectives that have sought to innovate social security between 1960 and 2025. Outside the established institutions, citizens have taken the initiative to actively bring about changes to social security, drawing on their own experiences.
For example, older Moroccan workers organised themselves into the Comité Marokkaanse WAO-slachtoffers to highlight implementation issues; women set up vocational schools to give married women returning to work access to suitable vocational training; and people with disabilities campaigned for legislation to make it easier for them to participate in the labour market.
All these groups sought to establish new forms of social security, improve existing ones, or push for different legislation. Many of these groups’ archives are held (in part or in full) at the IISG.
An interview with Rosa Kösters can be read on the KNAW website at the KNAW website.
From January 2027, she will begin the research made possible by the Gak Institute-KNAW.
The Gak Institute-KNAW Award
The Gak Institute and the KNAW have been presenting the award annually since 2019. The award is intended for talented researchers at the start of their careers, to conduct research in the field of social security and the labour market. The Gak Institute-KNAW Award, funded by the Gak Institute, consists of a three-year appointment as a postdoctoral researcher within a KNAW institute. The Gak Institute funds social projects, research, chairs and lectureships in the field of social security and the labour market in the Netherlands.
