Research career: Steffen Andersen

CBS professor receives grant from the Danish Councils for Independent Research

Professor Steffen Andersen, 35, from the Department of Economics has just received DKK 8 million for the project 'Revealing Economic Behavior': Register Based Experimentation'.

He is among 33 young researchers who have been granted a total of DKK 250 million by the Danish Councils of Independent Research in August 2011.  The grants are given as part of the Council's research career programme Sapere Aude, which was initiated in 2010. The aim of the career programme is to create role models, serve as a springboard for the elite to international prestige and network and strengthen the talent pool.

Our economic behaviour

According to Steffen Andersen, the grant gives him an opportunity to go one step further from an ordinary research project to a large collaboration with other researchers.

- Now I can allow myself to invest more time in building a proper research infrastructure an create a research environment for experimental economy in Denmark, he says.

In experimental economy, a number of people will, as part of an experiment, be faced with real choices with financial consequences.  In other words, you will receive a cash reward for making one out of several possible choices. The researchers will then discover how we react to financial incentives, because the behaviour will not always be selfish and rational as it is assumed within classic economic theory.

The career programme

The Danish Councils for Independent Research is behind the career programme Sapere Aude and will distribute more than DKK 1.1 million for Danish research in 2011. 

The literal translation of ’Sapere Aude’ could be 'dare to be wise' or ’dare to know’ – the expression is known from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant as an Enlightenment slogan.