ELS Midseason Event 2025: A Recap

PhD Event

ELS Midseason Event 2025: A Recap

On the 20th of March, ELS Academy organized a successful Midseason Event themed around funding grants at Leiden University.

The event began in a relaxed manner with an informal lunch, providing participants with an opportunity to mingle and get ready for the day. The event was named Funding Forward, and that is what the panel discussion was all about. Panelists Matthew Canfield, Jaroslaw Kantorowicz, Vanessa Mak and Jekaterina Savicka delved into the challenges of funding, gave tips and tricks, and shared their personal experiences, including rejections. The audience had plenty of time to question them about subjects such as the challenge of securing a position post PhD, selling the empirical component in your research, collaboration in grant writing, developments in the funding landscape, and the types of grants and funding bodies out there.

After some coffee and tea, presentations were given by grant receivers on their projects which received funding from the ELS Academy. These included Aylin Aydin Cakir (How does Court-Curbing affect Public Attitudes Towards the Judicial Institutions?); Loran Kostense and Sofia de Jong (Comparing Legal Research Methods); Marie-Therese Sekwenz (Empirical Systemic Risk Evaluation in Political Advertising under the Digital Services Act) and Sarah Vahed (The Neuroscience of Digital Justice).

Afterwards, we finished up with drinks and a borrel. We were happy to see so many scholars from Leiden University and other universities present and are thankful to our speakers!