Rosa Kösters

• E-mail:rosa.kosters@iisg.nl
• Department: Research

Bio
Rosa Kösters specialises in labour and social movement history, collective action, and every day, bottom-up organising. Through her historical research, she engages with contemporary social and political debates.

Rosa studied History at the University of Amsterdam, where she obtained her BA and MA cum laude. She participated in the IISH and FNV project Historische Verkenningen Vakbeweging (2017) and worked as an independent researcher for The Scientific Bureau for the Dutch Trade Union Movement (WB) (2019).

She completed her dissertation, How to Self-Organise: Insights from Workers at Albert Heijn (Ahold) and Unox (Unilever), 1960–2020, which examines workplace experiences from the perspectives of migrant workers, women, men, and young people. The research highlights everyday practices of worker self-organisation, both within and beyond trade unions, and brings these experiences together within an innovative conceptual framework. 

Rosa has received several awards, including the Scriptieprijs voor de vakbeweging (2018) and KNAW Faces of Science (2022). She is a regular expert contributor to national media and is committed to conducting research in collaboration with academic and non-academic partners, as well as to sharing scientific insights with diverse audiences.

Publications: Rosa Kösters – Research output — Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)

Current projects
Rosa is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Women Forward with Network V, a collaboration between the IISH and the Dutch trade union FNV. The project promotes gender equality in the ICT and cleaning sectors by creating, supporting, expanding, and researching women’s networks.

She is also a postdoctoral researcher on a citizen science project on the labour movement in Indonesia. In addition, she coordinates the Hub Global Labour Conflicts, a data collaboration project that aims to collect and make accessible data on various forms of collective action worldwide.

Committees 
Vice Chair of the Steering Committee of the European Labour History Network (ELHN). 
Co-founder and coördinator of the ELHN Working Group Precarious Labour.