Pearl Dykstra

Pearl Dykstra is professor emerita of Empirical Sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her publications focus on intergenerational solidarity, family change, aging and the life course, comparative social and family policy, and late-life well-being. She served as the Scientific Director of ODISSEI, the Open Data Infrastructure for Social Science and Economic Innovations in the Netherlands, which received Large-scale Scientific Infrastructure funding in 2020 and 2025. At present, as employee of Utrecht University, she serves as chair of the Netherlands Council for Digital Infrastructures in the Social Sciences and Humanities. In 2015 she was appointed as member of the group of European Commission Chief Scientific Advisors, served as its Deputy Chair from 2016 to 2020 and is now an alumnus. She currently holds the position of invited expert to the European Commission. She is an elected member and previous Vice-President of the Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), fel