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A resilient European Union? European economic reforms meet politicisation - prof.dr. Markus Haverland

The Covid-19 pandemic has hit the EU hard, also economically. Some member states have been hit harder than others, however, threatening the stability of the EU. In response, the EU has made a massive budget available for investments, linked to implementing domestic reforms long requested by the EU. Will the EU’s additional resources make a difference? Does the political game change because pro-reform players are empowered? Are they taking up the gauntlet energetically, by cleverly framing reforms and thereby breaking resistance, or are Eurosceptic forces holding them back? This will be investigated for Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.

Read the detailed article on Markus Haverland's research.

The growing pains of increasing team diversity - prof.dr. Daan van Knippenberg

Research points to the benefits of team diversity, but does not speak to what it means for team functioning when team diversity changes. The following aspects will be studied: changes in team functional and cultural diversity, and outline how diversity change, and diversity increase in particular, requires careful management not to let team functioning suffer from ‘growing pains’.

Neanderthals and “us”: how the golden age of Neanderthal research challenges human self-understanding - prof.dr. Hub Zwart

Our image of Neanderthals is changing rapidly, and this affects long-standing views about ourselves. Increasingly, Neanderthals are regarded as capable of allegedly unique human practices (language, music, symbolism), and therefore as humans, people like us. Although the scientific image of Neanderthals has dramatically shifted, research still tends to focus on anatomical, genetic, psychic and cultural differences (‘them’ vs. ‘us’). This project combines insights from Palaeolithic archaeology, philosophy, and gender studies to analyse how transitions in Neanderthal research challenge our self-understanding, reopening the question: what makes us human?