ZODIAC project awarded KHMW Stimulus
The Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW) has awarded the first Stimulus ‘Human and Organisation’ grant to ZODIAC, a project led by research fellow Corine Boon, with research fellow Almasa Sarabi as a team member.
ZODIAC (Zero-person Organisational Departments in Interaction, Accountability and Collaboration) is led by research fellow Corine Boon, Professor of HRM & People Analytics at Amsterdam Business School, University of Amsterdam, together with Tom van Engers, Professor of Legal Knowledge Management at Amsterdam Law School. Other members of the team include research fellow Almasa Sarabi, Neris Güven and Marco Rapp, and Faculty of Science researchers professor Sander Klous and Thomas van Binsbergen.
The award, presented for the first time in 2026, includes €400,000 in funding and is supported by the Stichting De Quay Rutten. The awarded proposal was selected from 87 submissions from universities across the Netherlands.
The ZODIAC project focuses on a new type of organisational structure in which artificial intelligence (AI) runs an entire department without human staff: the ‘zero-person department’. The project aims to improve the understanding of how people collaborate with fully automated departments, how roles and skills evolve, and what the impact is on workload, wellbeing and oversight. The project also examines long-term effects on organisational performance and accountability.
Symposium on AI and the future of work
The award ceremony will take place on Friday 5 June. Ahead of the ceremony, KHMW will host a symposium on the impact of AI on work and organisations.
Read more about the project on the website of the University of Amsterdam.