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14 04, 2022

ERI Seminar: Europe’s Nature Governance Revolution: Environmental Democracy in Action?

2022-04-14T11:23:17+02:00April 14, 2022|Seminar, Utrecht University|

By Edwin Alblas (Wageningen University). Date: April 20th from 15:00 to 17:00 at the Newtonlaan 201, in room 24 on the 4th floor, Utrecht.

The EU has some of the world’s most ambitious and highly-developed environmental laws on its books, but their effectiveness is severely compromised by non-compliance and poor implementation. The ‘Effective Nature Laws’ (ERC funded) research project breaks new ground by mapping empirically the evolution of EU environmental governance laws between 1992-2015. Recently completed, this major interdisciplinary project, led by professor Suzanne Kingston, combined leximetric analysis, quantitative and qualitative methods, as well as a lab-experiment. Edwin Alblas, assistant professor in environmental law at Wageningen University and post-doc researcher at the RUG, will present the methodology and results of this project during the ERI Seminar: Europe’s Nature Governance Revolution: Environmental Democracy in Action? The seminar will take place on April 20th from 15:00 to 17:00 at the Newtonlaan 201, in room 24 on the 4th floor, Utrecht. Edwin Alblas uses different types of research methodologies, including surveys (country comparative) and text analysis of large sets of legislative documents see examples in the publications below.

  • Kingston, S., Alblas, E., Callaghan, M. and Foulon, J., Magnetic law: Designing environmental enforcement laws to encourage us to go further. Regulation & Governance (2021). https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12416
  • Kingston, S., Wang, Z., Alblas, E. et al., The democratisation of European nature governance 1992–2015: introducing the comparative nature governance index. Int Environ Agreements (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-021-09552-5

Sign up for the meeting via ERI@uu.nl

18 10, 2021

New literature

2022-05-24T13:17:15+02:00October 18, 2021|Literature|

Several interesting books relevant to the field of Empirical Legal Studies have been released recently:

13 06, 2021

Workshop series Empirical Research Design for PhDs

2022-05-24T13:18:28+02:00June 13, 2021|Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Workshop|

VU PhDs are invited to subscribe for a Workshop Series on Empirical Research Design.

What: The workshop empirical research design is an open discussion workshop, in which participants work together on mini research design problems. More information, click here.

For whom: PhDs from Law-VU, Criminology-VU and NSCR.

When: From October to December, 2021 (exact dates t.b.a.). 8 weeks, weekly one afternoon session, 1.30 pm – 5 pm.

Supervisor: Henk Elffers (NSCR)

INTERESTED? QUESTIONS? SUGGESTIONS? REGISTERING? Please express your interest by e-mail to HElffers@nscr.nl, indicating your research project (½ A4) and your methodology background or lack of it. Use ERD2021 in the subject line of your e-mail.

19 02, 2021

Looking back on the ELS conference of February 5th

2022-05-24T13:18:04+02:00February 19, 2021|Conference|

On February 5th 2021, the first congress of the Dutch Platform Empirical Legal Studies (ELS) took place. The first meeting of the platform served to bring young, enthusiastic and driven ELS scholars together in a research community and enable them to learn more about empirical research in a legal context.

Participants from universities outside of the Netherlands could also attend the conference since the spoken language was English.

The various universities participating in the ELS Platform introduced themselves and their research groups via a short video. The more than 80 participants were then welcomed by Rianka Rijnhout (Utrecht University) and Helen Pluut (Leiden University). Jessie Pool, PhD candidate and member of the ELS team at Leiden Law School, kicked off the conference. She gave a short presentation about ELS and introduced three research themes with problem statements. The participants had to work with these themes in parallel breakout rooms, which were moderated by assistant professors. The aim was to come up with a relevant research question and choose appropriate empirical methodology. The workshops led to creative ideas that were exchanged in a plenary session.

After these interactive workshops, the participants could enjoy a lunch delivered to their homes. The afternoon session started with a presentation by Nina Holvast, Erasmus University, entitled ‘Researching a hidden actor: the role and influence of judicial assistants in Dutch courts’. In her presentation, she took the participants through the process of her recently published research and discussed the results. She elaborately discussed the various empirical research methods that she had used.

After a short break, Shosha Wiznitzer, PhD student at Utrecht University, gave a presentation entitled: ‘Combining surveys and interviews in a defensive medicine study: Why, how, and what (not) to do’. She discussed openly the challenges she encountered in her research and how she responded to them. A very instructive presentation for starting ELS researchers!

The last part of the programme was a live data analysis by Helen Pluut and Rianka Rijnhout. At the beginning of the conference, they had asked the participants to complete a short survey. They analysed the data on the spot by sharing their screens and discussed the preliminary results of the survey. It offered the participants a very insightful and accessible introduction to SPSS and NVivo.

It was an inspiring conference day with many different elements. Despite the online environment, there was a lot of interaction with and between the participants, creative ideas were exchanged, and interesting discussions took place. After the presentations, there was an opportunity to connect and get to know each other. In a virtual Wonder room, the participants enthusiastically joined in a pubquiz team battle while enjoying snacks and beverages that were delivered to their homes. The winning team received Kees van den Bos’ book Empirical Legal Research: A primer.

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