Development economist awarded 2026 European Research Council Starting Grants

03 September 2026

Today, four University of Oxford researchers have been awarded prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants. Among them is Alison Andrew, Associate Professor at the Department of Economics.

The ERC is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. Each ERC Starting Grant is worth €1.5 million for a period of up to five years. 

Part of the Horizon Europe programme, the grants are designed to support exceptional researchers at the beginning of their careers to develop ambitious ideas, build their own teams and establish their independence at a pivotal stage in their careers. This year, the scheme attracted a record 4,807 proposals, with just 421 (8.8%) of these being funded.

Associate Professor Alison Andrew, Department of Economics

Populations in low- and middle-income countries are aging fast, yet access to sizeable pensions is rare. Professor Andrew will use the ERC Starting Grant to study how people in low- and middle-income countries support themselves in old age through their own work and savings, through money and care from family, and through government programs and how these different sources of support fit together. The project combines detailed data on households across eleven countries with a large-scale field experiment built around the rollout of a new pension scheme for informal workers in rural Uganda. The findings will speak to the design of pension and social policies that protect older people while taking into account impacts on families.