The NWO Spinoza Prize is the most prestigious academic distinction in the Netherlands. The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) awards the prize to Dutch researchers who rank among the world‘s most eminent scholars and scientists. The prestigious prize is awarded to scholars and scientists for their outstanding, ground-breaking and inspiring research. They are awarded €2.5 million each, which they may spend on the research of their choice.

2023

Professor Joyeeta Gupta (Professor of Environment and Development in the Global South)

Climate change is having a disproportionate impact on countries in the Global South, although they bear little of the blame for causing it. Joyeeta Gupta (1964), Professor of Environment and Development in the Global South at the University of Amsterdam, investigates how issues connected with the inequitable distribution of the effects of climate change can be resolved through good governance.

2012

Professor Annemarie Mol (Anthropology of the Body)

In her research she uniquely combines philosophy, medical sociology, anthropology, sociology of science and social theory. From an anthropologist's perspective, she studies how we deal with our bodies and in so doing changes deep-rooted paradigms. How do we cope with illness? How do we think and talk about illness? What is eating actually about? Her approach to such questions influences and inspires researchers throughout the world.

2025

Vici

• Rachel Spronk (Anthropology) | The social life of sexuality: erotic practices, cultural formations, and the unruliness of sexuality

2024

Vici

• Liza Mügge (Political Science) | Political masculinities in Europe

2023

Veni

• Natashe Lemos Dekker (Anthropology) | The Politics of Grief: COVID-19-Related Loss and Collective Action in Brazil
• Maria Hagan (Anthropology) | Injured Body: when Injury Disrupts Migration

Vidi

• Rahil Roodsaz (Anthropology) | Rhythms of Love: Enduring Romantic Relationships at Midlife in Contemporary Western Europe

2022

Vidi

• Fenella Fleischmann (Sociology) | What does religion mean for integration? The role of religious reasoning 

Vici

• Daniel Mügge (Political Science) | Regulation of Artificial Intelligence in the Shadow of Global Interdependence  

2020

Veni

• Rowan Arundel (GPIO) | WEALTHSCAPES: the spatial inequality of housing wealth accumulation
• Eefje Steenvoorden (Political Science) | What does trust in politics mean to you? Types of political (dis)trust and their behavioural consequences
• Petter Törnberg (GPIO) | Seeing the city through digital platforms

2019

Veni

• Cody Hochstenbach (GPIO) | Investing in inequality: how the increase in private housing investors shapes social divides
• Liliya Leopold (Sociology) | Social Norms, Body Weight, and Well-Being: A Multi-Method Comparison of Germany, Korea, the Netherlands, and the United States
• Roderik Rekker (Political Science) | Are millennials transforming politics? A study on generational differences in voting 
• Nanke Verloo (GPIO) | Strengthening democracy beyond ‘participation’: informal politics and inclusive urban development
• Else Vogel (Anthropology) | Veterinary concerns: negotiating different values in the intensive livestock industry

2018

Vici

• Sarah Bracke (Sociology) | EnGendering Europe’s Muslim Question

Veni

• Rahil Roodsaz (Anthropology) | The Paradox of romantic love: negotiating autonomy and commitment in intimate relationships in the Netherlands
• Sara Geven (Sociology) | What do you expect? Studying teacher expectations through an institutional lens
• Eelco Harteveld (Political Science) | From ‘disagree’ to ‘disapprove’: the origins and consequences of affective polarization in Europe

2017

Veni

• Kobe De Keere (Sociology) | Hiring on taste: revealing the hidden power of cultural capital within occupational recruitment procedures 
• Daphne van der Pas (Political Science) | Do female politicians talk differently? Or do journalists hear different things?
• Fabio Wolkenstein (Political Science) | Democratising Europe Through Transnational Partisanship

Vidi

• Liza Mügge (Political Science) | Misrepresenting Diversity? Identity in politics
• Justus Uitermark (Sociology) | Between collectivization and enclosure: examining the uneven provision of clean water, waste disposal and public space in rapidly growing cities

2016

Veni

• Marcel Hanegraaff (Political Science) | Lobbying in the European Union: Why the Political Agenda Favours Some Interests Over Others
• Matthijs Rooduijn (Political Science) | Building or Burning Bridges?

Vidi

• Tom van der Meer (Political science) | From a crisis of political trust to a crisis of democracy
• Enzo Rossi (Political science) | Legitimacy Beyond Consent
• Rachel Spronk (Anthropology) | Sexuality and the Making of the Middle Class: A Comparative Study of Desire and Status in Three African Countries

2015

Veni

• Thijs Bol (Sociology) | Pay gaps between occupations
• William Boterman (Urban Studies) | Educational inequality and socio-spatial strategies of parents
• Beste Isleyen (Political Science) | The daily governance of transit migration in Turkey at European Union borders: the Europeanisation of Turkish border and migration governance

2014

Vici

• Herman van de Werfhorst (Sociology) | Between Institutions and Social Mechanisms: Education and Inequality in Comparative Perspectiv

Vidi

• Daniel Mügge (Political Science) | The politics of economic measurements  

Veni

• Sofie Marien (Political Science) | The quality of political debate and political trust 
• Emily Yates-Doerr (Anthropology) | When global health meets local development: a case study of the 'First 1000 Days of Life'-intervention in Guatemala 
• Luara Leite Ferracioli (Political Science) | Asylum theory for a non-ideal world  

2023

• Ruth Carlitz (Political Science) | Budgeting for the Future: Understanding the Allocation of Climate Finance in the Global South (ClimateFiGS)
• Else Vogel (Anthropology)| Farm Animal Value-Scapes: Veterinarians and the Contrasting Values of European Livestock Production (VetValues)

2021

Federico Savini: Towards a circular degrowth economy: explaining the material valorization regime of city-regions  

2020

• Thijs Bol (Sociology) |  From School to Career: Towards A Career Perspective on the Labour Market Returns to Education
• Imke Harbers (Political Science) | Legal Identity for All?
• Kristine Krause (Anthropology) | Relocating Care within Europe: Moving the Elderly to Places Where Care is More Affordable

2019

• Cristóbal Bonelli (Anthropology) | Worlds of Lithium: A Multi-Sited and Transnational Study of Transitions towards Post-Fossil Fuel Societies
• Ursula Daxecker (Political Science) | Elections, Violence, and Parties
• Jana Krause (Political Science) | Social Resilience, Gendered Dynamics, and Local Peace in Protracted Conflicts
• Thomas Leopold (Sociology) | Uncovering the Kinship Matrix: A New Study of Solidarity and Transmission in European Families

2017

• Gijs Schumacher (Political Science) | Politics and Emotions Investigated Comparatively
• Emily Yates-Doerr (Anthropology) | Global Future Health: A Multi-Sited Ethnography of an Adaptive Intervention

2014

• Eelke Heemskerk (Political Science) | Corporate Network Governance: Power, Ownership and Control in Contemporary Global Capitalism
• Daniel Mügge (Political Science) | The Global Politics of Macroeconomic Measurement 

2013

• Rivke Jaffe (Political Science) | Transforming Citizenship through Hybrid Governance: The Impacts of Public-Private Security Assemblages
• Barak Kalir (Anthropology) | The Social Life of State Deportation Regimes: Implementation Practices in Israel, Spain, Greece and Ecuador

2012

• Alexander Edmonds (Anthropology) | From warfare to welfare: a comparative study of how combat trauma is internalized and Institutionalized
• Manuel Aalbers (Political and Economic Geographies, GPIO): The Real Estate/ Financial Complex

2011

• Richard Ronald (Political and Economic Geographies, GPIO) | Housing markets and welfare state transformations
• Maria Koinova (Political Science) | Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty: Transnational Diaspora Mobilization in Europe and Its Impact on Political Proceses in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Middle East)

2023

Willem Boterman (Urban Geographies) | PROTEINSCAPES. The political geography of the production and consumption of animal proteins

2022

Tom van der Meer (Political Science) | CRITICALTRUST: Healthy or harmful distrust? On the democratic relevance of political scepticism over blind (dis)trust

2018

Shanshan Lan (Anthropology) | The reconfiguration of whiteness in China - Privileges, precariousness, and racialized performances 

2015

• Marieke de Goede (Political Science) | FOLLOW-Finance/Security practice after 9/11: Following the Money from Transaction to Trial
• Don Weenink (Sociology) | GROUPVIOLENCE: Groups and violence. A micro-sociological research programme 

2014

• Hein de Haas (Sociology) | MADE: Migration as Development
• Eileen Moyer (Anthropology) | Becoming Men: Performing Responsible Masculinities in Contemporary Urban Africa

2013

Vinh-kim Nguyen (Anthropology) | Eradication: the science and politics of a world without AIDS

2025

Marieke de Goede (Politcal Science) | COLFIN: Colonial Financial Infrastructures

2024

Don Weenink (Sociology) | Turn-taking and turning points in violent encounters. Towards an explanatory theory of how conflicts un urban public space begin, transform and end (TURNING VIOLENT)

2022

• Rivke Jaffe (Political Science) | Political Animals: A More-than-Human Approach to Urban Inequalities’ (ANIMAPOLIS)
• Amade M'charek (Anthropology) | Vital Elements and Postcolonial Moves: Forensics as the Art of Paying Attention in a Mediterranean Harbour Town

2020

• Joyeeta Gupta (Governance and Inclusive Development) | Climate change, financial coherence and LeavIng Fossil Fuels underground in the changing North-South context

2017

• Dennis Rodgers (Governance and Inclusive Development) | Gangs, Gangsters, and Ganglands: Towards a Global Comparative Ethnography

2014

• Matthijs Kalmijn (Sociology) | Family Complexity: Intergenerational Reproduction and Solidarity in an Era of Family Complexity

2012

• Marlies Glasius (Political Science) | Authoritarianism in a Global Age: Controlling Information and Communication, Association and People Movement
• Prof. Anita Hardon (Anthropology) | What chemicals do for youths in their everyday lives
• Prof. Annelies Moors (Anthropology) | Problematizing ‘Muslim Marriages’: Ambiguities and Contestations

2011

• Niko Besnier (Anthropology) | Globalization, Sports and the Precarity of Masculinity