“During my NIAS Fellowship I carried out research on the impact of the corona-crisis on labour market inclusion of people with occupational disabilities. How does the practice of working from home, for example, influence the labour market, and can this open up opportunities for people who have become (partly) incapacitated for work?”
Kampen held a fellowship in the midst of the pandemic, and the topic was very timely. Kampen therefore also spent a considerable amount of time writing three large grant proposals. “I applied for an Instituut Gak fellowship to chart new directions for my career. Writing proposals can be a fruitful way of doing this. It has also helped me to talk about what I’m working on during lunches, to think along with others during seminars from your own perspective formed by your discipline, and to hear how others give feedback on ideas of other scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds. The time for reflection made me shift the focus of my research.”
Thomas Kampen was the Instituut Gak Fellow in 2021/22, a fellowship dedicated to research on social security and labour markets supported by the Instituut Gak. He worked on a project on the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on labor market inclusion of people with occupational disabilities. Of the grant proposals he wrote at NIAS, one grant was awarded to Kampen. He also talked about work and care during the Night of Sociology together with journalist-in-residency Lynn Berger. Kampen is Assistant Professor at the University of Humanistic Studies.