Nominees

Vanuit de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (dan wel de Universiteit Leiden) kan elke faculteit, in het jaar dat de Gratama Wetenschapsprijs aan een kandidaat van de desbetreffende universiteit kan worden toebedeeld, één kandidaat aan het beoordelende college voor de prijs voorstellen. De uiteindelijke winnaar ontvangt € 20.000, de twee andere genomineerden krijgen elk een bedrag van € 2.500, te besteden aan hun verdere wetenschappelijke ontplooiing.

2022

Dr. Yuliya Hilevych, Faculty of Arts

Yuliya Hilevych (1988) is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Arts. She is conducting historical research into human reproduction, the social history of infertility, and of reproductive technology in Europe. Her research focuses on the human experience and search for meaning, as well as on social institutions and collective action, and shows how a humanities-based approach produces socially relevant results that can lead to innovative solutions to social problems. Dr Hilevych analyses social movements surrounding reproduction and the practice of abortion and relates them to large social issues such as population shrinkage, war, infertility, and childlessness.

In her PhD thesis, she showed that there were different abortion cultures and reproductive practices in Soviet Ukraine, which is extremely relevant for the current debates on the criminalization of abortion in some East European countries. The results of her research on shrinkage and war over the past eight years in eastern Ukraine are particularly relevant in the context of the current war in the country. She is currently writing a monograph on the social history of infertility. In addition, she is also one of the leaders of a large-scale project for Horizon Europe on gender relations and demographic crises in Eurasia.

Yuliya Hilevych is working together with renowned researchers affiliated with the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and Lincoln. She is an in-demand speaker at universities, research institutes, and in national and international policy circles. Her contributions to the briefing papers of the United Nations in Washington, advice issued to the Ministry of Justice and Security, and media appearances attest to the broad reach of her research.

Dr. Lieuwe Zijlstra, University College Groningen

Lieuwe Zijlstra (1983) is affiliated with University College Groningen as assistant professor. He is an interdisciplinary researcher in the new field of experimental philosophy. Lieuwe Zijlstra’s academic career displays both his academically innovative and socially relevant qualities. A typical characteristic of his interdisciplinary research is that he conducts both empirical and philosophical research into topics that are directly linked to social issues, or on our daily life.

In his PhD thesis, he researched whether people are inclined to think that moral judgements are objectively correct or incorrect by combining philosophical research findings with conducting psychological experiments. During his PhD research in Groningen and Ghent, he conducted research at Yale University for a year and a half under the supervision of Joshua Knobe, leader in the experimental philosophy research field. This is a highly demanding field of research. It requires command of conceptual analysis and logic, as well as expertise in empirical research methodology and statistics. Zijlstra is a pioneer in the Netherlands. He is working on academic issues in moral psychology, perceptions of personal identity, happiness and search for meaning, as well as on the topic of moral progress.

In his interdisciplinary lectures at the University College Groningen, he asked students to research the relationship between memory and identity, the subjective experience of happiness in social groups, and the origins of moral judgements.