ERIM Awards 2024: Celebrating Research Excellence

Co-hosting the event were Inga Hoever, Scientific Director of ERIM, and Pilar Garcia-Gomez, Associate Director of ERIM — marking a milestone as ERIM’s first female international vice deans to lead the ceremony. They set the stage with a warm welcome, expressing gratitude to the ERIM Office for their tireless work in advancing ERIM's mission and making such celebrations possible. A major announcement followed: the launch of ERIM’s newly designed website, created to enhance accessibility and serve researchers and PhD candidates better.

PhD Dissertation Awards

The awards began with the Best Full-Time PhD Dissertation awards, presented by Aukje Hassoldt, Dean of RSM, and Patrick Groenen, Dean of ESE.

• Dr. Sai Kalvapalle received the award for her dissertation titled Breaking the Conduit: A Relational Approach to Communication in Management and Entrepreneurship. Sai's work explored new perspectives in management and entrepreneurship, with her research already making a mark in prestigious journals such as the Academy of Management Annals.
• Dr. Annelot Wismans won for her dissertation, Behavioural Insights from the COVID-19 Pandemic: Studies on Compliance, Vaccination, and Entrepreneurship. Annelot’s highly productive work on the impact of the pandemic demonstrated how behavioural insights can be applied to pressing societal challenges.

Both recipients discussed their findings and how their PhD journeys shaped their careers, with Sai now an Assistant Professor at Nova School of Business and Economics and Annelot working as a researcher at the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM).

Next, the Best Part-Time PhD Dissertation Award was presented to two winners.

• Dr. Max-Antoine Jean Renault won for his dissertation, All for One and One for All: How Teams Adapt to Crises. His longitudinal study on healthcare teams’ responses to crises, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic, provided valuable insights into leadership and team dynamics during challenging times.
• Dr. Henk Jan Reinders was awarded for his dissertation titled Financial Stability in a Changing Environment. His research addressed the impact of climate change on financial markets and included influential contributions to the field of climate finance.

Dr. Bex Hewett, Academic Director of ERIM’s Part-time PhD Programme, accepted the awards on behalf of Max and Henk, who were unavailable but shared lovely video messages. In a conversation with Patrick and Aukje, Bex highlighted how Max integrates his research into his role as Director of Innovations at Weill Cornell Medicine Qatar, while Henk applies his insights in his work as Senior Economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Research Awards

Next, the Rector Magnificus of EUR, Prof. dr. ir. Jantine Schuit was invited on stage to present the Top Article Award.

• Dr. Matthijs Korevaar won the award for his paper, Reaching for Yield and the Housing Market: Evidence from 18th-Century Amsterdam. Matthijs' work, published in the Journal of Financial Economics, explored the relationship between investor behaviour and housing market volatility, offering groundbreaking insights that have had a significant impact both academically and in public discourse.

Jantine then presented ERIM Award for Outstanding Performance by a Young Researcher to two winners.

• Dr. Matthijs Korevaar also won this award for his exceptional contributions to financial-economic research. His interdisciplinary approach and commitment to open science have earned him recognition as one of the rising stars at ERIM.
• Dr. Sebastian Gabel won this award as a quantitative marketing scholar from RSM. Sebastian’s pioneering work in (deep) machine learning to study the behavior of individual consumers earned him widespread acclaim in both academic and business circles. He has applied the methods he developed to increase marketing effectiveness in retailing and for personalized behavioral interventions that increase the sustainable behaviour of consumers.

As both winners were abroad on research visits, their colleagues accepted the awards: Prof. dr. Sebastian Gryglewicz for Matthijs and Prof. dr. Aurélie Lemmens for Sebastian.

In conversation with the awardees’ colleagues, Jantine reflected on what enables young researchers to excel. The discussion emphasised ERIM’s role in providing a collaborative environment, strong mentorship, and funding opportunities to foster future academic leaders.

The ERIM Awards 2024 once again highlighted the depth and impact of research within the ERIM community, reaffirming its commitment to academic excellence and societal relevance.