diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index d26000e..e66450e 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 {
   "name": "tdp_publicdb",
   "description": "",
-  "version": "14.0.0",
+  "version": "14.0.1",
   "author": {
     "name": "The Caleydo Team",
     "email": "contact@caleydo.org",
@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@
     "react-select-async-paginate": "^0.5.3",
     "react-select-event": "^5.5.1",
     "react-virtualized": "^9.22.3",
-    "tdp_core": "^20.1.0",
+    "tdp_core": "^20.1.1",
     "visyn_scripts": "^4.1.0"
   },
   "resolutions": {
diff --git a/tdp_publicdb/settings.py b/tdp_publicdb/settings.py
index a1f0083..26a2f39 100644
--- a/tdp_publicdb/settings.py
+++ b/tdp_publicdb/settings.py
@@ -1,4 +1,7 @@
-from pydantic import BaseModel
+import contextlib
+import json
+
+from pydantic import BaseModel, validator
 from visyn_core import manager
 
 
@@ -6,7 +9,17 @@ class TDPPublicDBSettings(BaseModel):
     dburl: str = "postgresql://publicdb:publicdb@publicdb:5432/publicdb"
     statement_timeout: str = "'5min'"
     statement_timeout_query: str = "set statement_timeout to {}"
-    engine: dict = {"pool_pre_ping": True}
+    engine: dict[str, str] | None = {"pool_pre_ping": True}
+    poolclass: str | None = "QueuePool"  # "NullPool" | "QueuePool" | "StaticPool"
+
+    @validator("engine", pre=True)
+    def json_decode_headers(cls, v):  # NOQA N805
+        # Manually parse JSON strings if they are coming from the env via `VISYN_CORE__...='{"...": ...}'`.
+        # See https://github.com/pydantic/pydantic/issues/831 for details.
+        if isinstance(v, str):
+            with contextlib.suppress(ValueError):
+                return json.loads(v)
+        return v
 
 
 def get_settings() -> TDPPublicDBSettings: