Femke is an interdisciplinary scholar and combine insights from politics, economics, psychology and history and regularly collaborate with scholars from these different domains. Her research agenda focuses on European governance, leadership, ideas and legitimacy. More in particular, she has an expertise in economic, financial and monetary EU policy and study to what extent democratic institutions, culture, and ideas play a role in peoples’ acceptance of political and economic leadership in European affairs. She also has a particular interest in innovative methodologies and - unique in the field - she has developed two software applications for cognitive mapping research that have been used in various research projects.
She has a healthy publication record with multiple articles published in the top-3 international peer-reviews journals in European Studies (West European Politics, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Common Market Studies). Having successfully obtained several European, national and institutional research grants from amongst others the Horizon2020 program as well as from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, to this day, Van Esch has raised over 750,000 Euro in research funding
Research grants:
- 2021: Netherlands E-Science Center, Small-Scale Initiative in Machine Learning grant for the project ‘Automation of the cognitive mapping text-analysis technique’ – principal investigator with Tejaswini Deoskar and Jeroen Snellens: In-kind support worth 21.250 Euro.
- 2021: Focus-area Applied Data Science grant for the project ‘Mining deeper meaning from text: Developing an automated cognitive mapping text analysis tool’ – principal investigator with Tejaswini Deoskar and Jeroen Snellens: 10.000 Euro.
- 2019: Horizon2020 Grant for the project ‘Trust in Governance and Regulation in Europe - TiGRE’. I am part of the USG team of researchers that acted as a co-applicant. Total grant (currently under negotiation with the European Commission): 3,000,000 Euro / 256,250 Euro for our team.
- 2018: UGlobe Call for Ideas Grant, Utrecht University for the proposal ‘The external dimension of legitimacy. How the EU copes with globalisation’– with Liesbeth van de Grift (History) and Ton van den Brink (Law): 5,000 Euro
- 2018: Visiting Fellowship Grant 2017-2018, Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance, Utrecht University for a research visit to Professor Claudio Radaelli, University of Exeter: 1,750 Euro
- 2016: Seeding-money Institutions for Open Societies, Utrecht University for the project: ‘Europe from Below. Popular Understandings of Europe in Digital Collections’ with Joris van Eijnatten and Melvin Wevers (History): 20,000 Euro.
- 2015: Horizon2020 Grant for the project ‘Enhancing the EU’S Transboundary Crisis Management Capacities: Strategies for Multi-level Leadership – TRANSCRISIS with 8 international partners: 3,000,000 Euro / 276,700 Euro for my work-package.
- 2014: Research Talent Scheme Grant of the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research (NWO) for the PhD project 'Leaders at the Helm? Responsive Leadership and Policy Change during the Euro-crisis' with Arjen Boin: 169,862 Euro.
- 2013: Seeding-money Institutions for Open Societies, Utrecht University for the project: ‘Wiens Europa? Ons Europa! Wat de burger wil van Europa. Een onderzoek van onderop. (‘Whose Europe? Our Europe! What the people want from Europe. A bottom-up study’) With Agnes Jongerius (European Parliament): 13,000 Euro.
- 2013: Breeding-money Institutions for Open Societies, Utrecht University for the project: ‘Europe in Mind: Cognition, Affect, and Implications for Political Behaviour.’ with Esther Papies and Madelijn Strick (Psychology): 20,000 Euro.
- 2008: Development Grant Focus Area Origins and Impacts of Institutions, Utrecht University for the project 'Understanding EU Policy- and Policy change: Institutions and Transnational Advocacy', with Mathieu Segers (History) and Karin Geuijen (Governance): 22,000 Euro.
- 1999: Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research (NWO) Travel Grant for a research stay at the University of Victoria, Canada: 1000 guilder