Young Academy Groningen welcomes new members Marijke Leliveld and Milena Nikolova

The Young Academy Groningen (YAG) has appointed seven new members from diverse disciplines at the University of Groningen, including dr Marijke Leliveld and dr Milena Nikolova of the Faculty of Economics and Business. The official Installation ceremony will be held on September 30th.

The Young Academy Groningen is a club for the University’s most talented, enthusiastic and ambitious young researchers. Its members come from all disciplines and have a passion for science and an interest in science policy, interdisciplinarity, diversity, internationalization, outreach, leadership and career development in academia.

Dr. Marijke Leliveld (Marketing Department, Faculty of Economics and Business)

‘I am a behavioral scientist at the Marketing department interested in the role of morality and ethics in economic decision-making. For example, why do people engage in charity donations? How about collaborations between companies and charities? When do we perceive such cause-related marketing campaigns as hypocritical and when as genuine? Why are scandals within commercial organizations often less severe than for charity organizations?

For these questions, I build upon theoretical and methodological insights from different disciplines, e.g., marketing, psychology, business administration, economics, sociology, philosophy, and public administration. This interdisciplinary approach reflects how I think about what science should be: learning from each other and combining expertise to tackle scientific and societal problems. A good example of such an interdisciplinary group at UG is the Center for Philosophy, Politics and Economics, of which I am a proud board member.

As a YAG member, my first goal is to improve university wide policies to make interdisciplinary research more attractive and rewarded for all researchers, including PhD students and early career researchers. Moreover, an important factor in public outreach is that our research is easily accessible for all people around the globe. I will be actively involved in the discussion on how to implement Open Access publishing.’

Dr. Milena Nikolova (Global Economics & Management, Faculty of Economics and Business)

‘Bulgarian who obtained her undergraduate and graduate education in the United States and worked in Germany before coming to Groningen. I work at the intersection of labor and development economics. Specifically, I rely on both subjective and objective well-being measures to explore the drivers and consequences of migration, economic development, labor market arrangements, and institutions.

I recently started two new research projects. The first one is on well-being and work, which is an increasingly important topic amidst the growing complexity and potential labor-saving consequences brought by digitalization and automatization. Second, together with co-authors, I am studying the long-term socio-economic consequences of forced prison labor in the Soviet Union.

I am happy to be joining the YAG and I am excited about working with other YAG members on developing new interdisciplinary research projects and identifying and solving the main challenges that young RUG academics face. I embrace the fact that the YAG helps young researchers advance in their careers by giving them voice to influence policy-relevant outcomes.’