Outer Space Politics is a collaboration between Darshan Vigneswaran of the University of Amsterdam and Enrike van Wingerden of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, dedicated to the development of critical theories on outer space, power, and politics.

Outer Space Politics seeks to track the emerging principles governing human presence in outer space. By conducting in-depth ethnographic research into missions to send humans across the Earth system, solar system and galaxy, and building an archive of outer space colonization imaginaries, this project seeks to enrich our understanding of the emerging ‘constitutional order’ of outer space colonization, while providing engineers, activists, artists and administrators with the critical tools to build more just outer space futures.

The Swedish Research Council awarded a second major grant to support collaborative research on migration between the Universities of Gothenburg and Amsterdam.

This three-year project, led by Anja Karlsson Franck (Gothenburg) and Darshan Vigneswaran (University of Amsterdam), investigates how Myanmar migrants seek protection from violence on their journeys to Malaysia and Thailand.

The project addresses the limited understanding of migrant self-protection, which traditional research often overlooks by focusing on state and organizational roles. Instead, it examines how migrants actively secure protection along four primary routes, exploring when they seek regularization and when they avoid state intervention. By analyzing this ambivalence, the study aims to reveal how these actions shape broader migrant protection systems.

This Swedish-Dutch collaboration merges micro- and macro-level research perspectives, generating new data and insights to deepen understanding of migrant-driven protection. The findings aim to improve the effectiveness of international efforts to safeguard migrants from violence.

Just Prepare - Putting REsident Practices And REsidential areas at the center of a JUST and effective energy transition in underprivileged neighbourhoods

In underprivileged neighbourhoods, attempts to realize the energy transition face mismatches between retrofit of poorly isolated houses and residents’ energy practices, and between residents and those actors planning and implementing solutions. These mismatches may hamper the energy transition in terms of effectiveness and justice (i.e. distribution of benefits and burdens; degree of access to decision‐making; and recognition of how vulnerable groups are affected by the energy transition). Shaping an effective and just energy transition in underprivileged neighborhoods encounters lack of knowledge about the diversity of energy related household practices, and about how to involve residents in planning and implementation of housing renovation.

This project develops the necessary methodological and substantive knowledge in Amsterdam-Zuidoost, Rotterdam Bospolder Tussendijken, Nijmegen and Gemert; uses that knowledge to create solutions in Living Labs with municipalities, housing corporations, residents and other relevant actors; improves these solutions on that basis; and prepares the findings for use elsewhere in a Learning Lab with Living Lab participants and a wider group of municipalities, businesses and other stakeholders.

Project period: 1 Sept 2022 to 30 June 2027

Funded by: NWO Kennis- en innovatieconvenant - MISSIE 2020 - Energietransitie als maatschappelijk-technische uitdaging 

The project is led by John Grin and Imrat Verhoeven of the UvA, and also includes Floris Vermeulen and Mendel Giezen of the UvA. Other involved researchers are from the Radboud University, TU Delft, Eindhoven University of Technology, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, and HAN University of Applied Sciences.

Furthermore, the project includes a total of 41 practice partners such as provinces, municipalities, housing corporations, energy companies, consultants and other organizations.

Although we often think of undocumented persons as migrants or non-citizens, about one in seven people across the globe lack documents such as birth certificates, ID cards or passports to prove their legal identity, and thus their status as citizens in their own country. This gap between citizens with and without state-recognized documents can be just as consequential as the distinction between citizens and non-citizens. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals express the commitment to “by 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration” (Target 16.9).

The CitizenGap project – funded by the European Research Council – pursues two main questions: (1) How and why do states invest in civil registration? (2) How and why do citizens decide to obtain documents? To understand why millions of citizens are undocumented, it is crucial to remember that citizenship is not only a legal status, but first and foremost a political relationship between states and the populations they govern. CitizenGap advances a strategic theory that seriously considers the incentives of states and citizens in the politics of civil registration. The project analyzes the origins and nature of the citizenship gap through cross-national and in-depth country studies. To learn more about the project, please visit the CitizenGap website.

Project period: 1 Sept 2021 to 31 Aug 2027

Funded by: ERC Starting Grant