Five Leiden research projects in history, law and AI have received SSH Open Competition M 2024 funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The researchers have up to five years to work on a promising idea.
A total of 59 researchers will receive funding. The projects span the breadth of the social sciences and humanities, including several that are interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary.
Below more information about the five Leiden awards:
Inheritance Tax: a tax to die for?
Laurens van Apeldoorn and Elody Hutten (both from the Institute of Tax Law and Economics)
As baby boomers pass down homes to their children, many of those children will gain (second) properties, reducing costs of living and increasing disposable income, while others face greater economic challenges without inherited property. Inheritance tax aims to reduce such disparities but faces strong public resistance, even among those unaffected by it. This project explores the factors driving aversion and investigates how inheritance tax could be reformed to address these sources of resistance. The research seeks to foster informed public debate and equip policymakers with grounded options for wealth transfer tax reform.
Dutch guest workers in 18th century Spain
Raymond Fagel (Institute for History)
During the first half of the 18th century many Dutch 'guest workers' found work in the newly founded royal textile factories in Spain. Both in Spain and the Netherlands this process has been studied from an economic perspective, but nobody has ever focused on the migrants themselves. The Netherlands were not solely a recipient of immigration. By studying their agency, we can analyse how these migrants related to governments, intermediaries and society at large. This research provides a historical mirror for the current migration debate in the Netherlands.
Is a gender-binary prison system fit for purpose? An intersectional study on safety, gender and sexuality in prison
Esther van Ginneken (Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology)
Across the world, prison systems have historically housed men and women separately. This separation is rarely questioned and seen as necessary for the protection of women. Yet, this binary approach to imprisonment reinforces gender stereotypes and ignores diversity in sex and gender identity. This research project revisits the gender-binary nature of the prison system using an intersectional and multidisciplinary approach, which includes empirical research in prisons in the Netherlands and on the island of Bonaire. In doing so, it consider how the prison experience is related to gender and other aspects of identity, such as sexuality and cultural background.
Out of Africa: Tracing the cross-cultural origins of African alterity, 1590-1720
Michiel van Groesen (Institute for History)
Seventeenth-century Dutch imaginations of West Africa were crucial in creating stereotypes of a continent and its inhabitants. This project, combining cultural history and African Studies, examines the interplay of Dutch representations and local knowledge in the creation of 'Africanity', which helped to legitimate asymmetric power relations which last until today.
How can we make better laws about AI?
Anne Meuwese (Institute of Public Law/SAILS) and Francien Dechesne (Center for Law and Digital Technologies (eLaw))
Getting the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) right is one of the central challenges of our times for policymakers, legislators and regulators. The AI Act adopted by the European Union is the most high-level and concrete result of their efforts. Yet, in the heat of the moment, little attention has been paid to the legislative quality of this European law. This project investigates how we can make better laws about AI by studying how various professionals deal with this new legislation from Europe. What problems do they encounter, and could better legislation solve them?
