Dr. Rafael Wittek
Coordinating Principal Investigator
Professor of Sociology
University of Groningen

Brief summary of research over last 5 years / academic profile
Rafael Wittek is a theoretical sociologist at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, with cutting-edge expertise on the institutional and behavioral foundations of social cohesion and its societal consequences. As coordinating PI of the SCOOP consortium (initiated 2012, Gravitation Award 2017), he led the development of a transdisciplinary joint research strategy that resulted in an innovative integrative model of sustainable cooperation. His recent book Evolutionary Foundations of Reputation-Based Cooperation, co-authored with Francesca Giardini (Cambridge UP, in press) challenges the standard account of social cohesion. His pathbreaking analysis puts forth informal and social reputation effects as the most powerful mechanism to sustain cooperation without intervention of formal authorities. Disentangling the erroneous psychological assumptions on which traditional analyses are based, the book develops a more powerful integrative model of the normative mechanisms keeping social systems together. Together with the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome, where Wittek held a guest professorship in 2022, he launched the Cultures of Resilience Alliance (CuRe). This transdisciplinary international initiative features innovative forms of co-creation between students, practitioners and scientists who share the ambition to foster Sustainability Transitions. Wittek is also an expert in mixed methods research including network analysis of large-scale datasets, ethnographic techniques, and use of longitudinal sociometric panel data.

International visibility, activities, prizes, scholarships etc.
Wittek is a leading scholar in national and international interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research initiatives. He is Scientific Director of SCOOP, a 10-year research program funded by the Dutch government, and past Director of the Interuniversity Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS). In 2010, Wittek was elected member of the European Academy of Sociology. He also served as elected chair of the American Sociological Association, section Rationality and Society (2012-2013). Wittek is frequently asked for international grant evaluation committees, including for ERC Advanced and ESF grants. He has received >10M€ in research grants, including the competitive personal grant VIDI. Wittek is the elected national coordinator of the Social Sciences Sectorplan Theme Societal Transitions and Behavioral Change. As the elected president of the Evolution Institute, a US-based international NGO, he currently leads a concerted attempt to translate insights from evolutionary research into more sustainable solutions of societal challenges through developing better theories of change. Since 2018, he is a member of the Advisory Committee of the NWA-route Resilient Societies. Finally, he is an educational innovator as evidenced by two grants (total >1M€) for teaching innovation (2017) and creating an excellent research and training environment for talented researchers (2009).

5 key output/publications
1. Kirgil, Z. M., & Wittek, R. (2024). Cooperation sustainability in small groups: Exogenous and endogenous dynamics of the sustainability of cooperation. Rationality and Society, 36(1), 93-121.
2. Wittek, R., F. Giardini. 2023. Evolutionary Foundations of Reputation-Based Cooperation. A Goal Framing Theory of Gossip. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
3. Silitonga, M. S., Wittek, R., Snijders, T. A., & Heyse, L. 2023. Democratizing corruption: a role structure analysis of Indonesia’s “Big Bang” decentralization. Appl Netw Sci, 8(1), 8-26.
4. Wittek, R. 2022. Reputation Traps: Social Evaluation and Governance Failures. Sociologica, 16(2), 75-102.
5. Takács, K., Gross, J., Testori, M., Letina, S., Kenny, A.R., Power, E.A., & Wittek, R. 2021. Networks of reliable reputations and cooperation: A review. Phil Trans Royal Soc B. B 376, no. 1838: 20200297.

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