VSR X ELS Academy PhD Days 2025

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Practical information

If you’re a PhD candidate, interested in empirical research on law in action – this event is for you! Do you already use empirical methods, or would you like to learn more about it? Join these PhD’s days for PhDs in empirical legal studies and socio-legal studies!

With the guidance of experts, you can explore methodologies that you currently use or are interested in. The PhD days are an excellent opportunity to meet other early career researchers and senior researchers. This year, we are offering 2 days with the theme ‘Route PhD’! In this way, we would like to offer workshops that are relevant for and interesting to PhDs in every phase of the PhD.

We are delighted that we can kick off these PhD days with a keynote of Professor Benjamin van Rooij. Professor Van Rooij is Professor Law & Society at the UvA. His impressive work focuses on the relation between the law and behaviour. In his keynote he will address the ‘Route’ of his career as an empirical legal scholar.

Furthermore, participants can expect interactive workshops ranging from workshops focused on methods, such as interviewing (both on a beginner as more advanced level), to workshops focused on other aspects of the PhD trajectory, such as well being or presenting your research. The programme is the following:

DAY 1:

9:00-9:45 Walk-in: registration & coffee/tea

9:45-10:15 Opening

10:30-11:30 Keynote by professor Benjamin van Rooij

Prof. dr. Benjamin van Rooij is Professor of Law and Society at the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and Global Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine. He directs the Center for Law and Behavior and leads an ERC-funded project on behavioral assumptions in law. His research explores the interaction between law and behavior, focusing on compliance, corporate culture, and behavioral change. He co-authored The Behavioral Code (Beacon Press 2021) and co-edited key works on compliance, including The Cambridge Handbook of Compliance (CUP 2021). Van Rooij also co-edits Regulation & Governance and is the founding convener of ComplianceNet. Currently he is working on a book about organizational harm.

11:30-13:00 Parallel workshops

• Workshop 1: Intro to Qualitative Methods: Interviewing – Hannah Bliersbach

This workshop will discuss the basics of qualitative interviewing. We will examine different interviewing techniques (structured, semi-structured, and unstructured), how to prepare an interview guide and what to pay attention to while interviewing. Throughout the session, we critically examine the role of the researcher and reflect on the importance of reflexivity, positionality, and ethics when conducting and analyzing interviews.

Hannah Bliersbach is an incoming Postdoc at the Van Vollenhoven Institute at Leiden University. Her dissertation, “Becoming and Belonging? Lived Experiences of Naturalisation and the Implementation of Citizenship Law in Germany and Canada” utilized in-depth interviewing to collect new citizens’ experiences of citizenship acquisition in Canada and Germany. She teaches classes in qualitative research methods and subjects at the intersection of policy implementation and migration. 

• Workshop 2: GDPR & data protection in research – Hanne Elsen

The European privacy legislation, the GDPR, has been in place since 25 May 2018. This GDPR has consequences for the processing of personal data; a category of data used in many research studies. This workshop will focus on the implementation of privacy and GDPR throughout the research life cycle, as well as on how to properly protect the data you gather throughout your research.

Hanne Elsen is the Data Protection Officer at Ghent University (Belgium). Additionally, she has been working as an independent Ethics Expert by the European Commission, undertaking ethics assessments and in particular contributing to debates related to the interplay between ethics and data protection. Ms. Elsen is also an active participant in several working groups focused on privacy and ethics, including the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR) on GDPR.

• Workshop 3: Social Network Analysis – Daria Morozova

In this workshop, we will look at how the relationships between individuals and entities can be studied through the lens of social network analysis (SNA). We will cover the basic concepts in SNA and discuss how the method can be relevant to legal scholars.

Daria is an assistant professor in management and organization. As a scholar, she is interested in what makes individual successful in the changing world and the role of technology and human creativity in this process.

13:00-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:30 Parallel workshops

• Workshop 1: Ethnographic approaches to socio-legal research – Matthew Caufield

Ethnography is an immersive and holistic research method widely used in socio-legal studies. However, its long-term commitment and often enigmatic process can make it seem daunting to legal scholars. This workshop aims to demystify ethnography by breaking down its core practices and exploring how it can be effectively adapted to diverse research settings and varying timeframes.

Matthew Canfield is Assistant Professor of Law and Society & Law and Development at Leiden Law School. An anthropologist by training, his work examines the law and governance of global food security. He is the PI of the ERC-funded project, DIGIFOOD: Data Governance for Equitable and Sustainable Food Systems.

• Workshop 2: How to present your PhD research

This workshop offers researchers a safe environment to practice their presentation skills in front of a limited audience. Not only does this workshop provide you with the opportunity to get feedback on the way you present your research, you also have the chance to discuss certain issues you encounter in your research with academics and get their views on it.

Spots are limited for this workshop

• Workshop 3: Engaging the public with your research – Rowie Stolk

Enhance your ability to connect your research with diverse audiences in this interactive workshop by mr. dr. Rowie Stolk! In this workshop, you will explore how and through what platforms you can broaden the reach of your research and make your research more accessible to reach groups outside academia.

Rowie Stolk is Assistant Professor at the Constitutional and Administrative Law Department of Leiden Law School and is coordinator of the Empirical Legal Studies lab Leiden. Her empirical legal research focuses on the role of interest groups in law, the access to justice of vulnerable groups and the role of judges in society. She teaches in the field of administrative law.

15:45 onwards: Walk & drinks

DAY 2:

9:00-9:30 Walk-in: coffee/tea

9:30 -11:00 Panel Panel on ‘Routes before and after PhD’ moderated by Danielle Chevalier, with panellists: Hilke Grootelaar, Sonja Bekker & Maartje van der Woude.

In this panel discussion, three panelists will share their PhD journeys, reflecting on their experiences during their doctoral studies, the paths they chose afterward, and the factors that influenced their decisions. Various career routes before and after completing a PhD will be explored, offering attending PhD candidates the opportunity to ask questions and engage in the conversation.

11:00-11:30 Coffee break

11:30-13:00 Parallel workshops

• Workshop 1: Systematic literature review – Loran Kostense & Lisa van Roermund

In this workshop, PhD researchers Loran Kostense (VU) and Lisa van Roermund (RU) will share their expertise on and experience with conducting a scoping review, which is a type of systematic literature review. Scoping reviews are used to systematically map the available literature on a topic to identify key theories, concepts or sources of evidence. Lisa and Loran will introduce participants to this method by sharing examples from their own research and assigning small tasks to enable active engagement with the method.

Loran Kostense is a PhD researcher in the Private Law department at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research explores divorce-related relocations, empirically investigating the impact of such relocations on the children involved and connecting these findings to the legal framework applied by judges in Dutch relocation cases.

Lisa van Roermund is a PhD researcher in the Notarial Law department at Radboud University Nijmegen. Her research focuses on future artificial reproductive technologies and parentage law in the Netherlands. The main aim of her research is to develop a future-proof regulatory framework, based on principles compliant with evolving artificial reproductive technologies while safeguarding ethical principles and human/children’s rights.

• Workshop 2: From surviving to thriving in PhD life: leading your path to success by overcoming self-sabotage  – Margarita Lourido Ferreira

Every day, your mind is sabotaging your performance, wellbeing, and your relationships. In this workshop, you will learn how self-sabotage is activated when we want to succeed and survive in daily life. Through a personalized assessment, you will identify your saboteurs. Finally, you will be aware of the importance of a positive mindset to neutralize self-sabotage, to allow you to maximize your capabilities and lead your path to success. NB: participants will receive the assessment beforehand and are requested to complete it prior to the workshop.

Margarita Lourido is PhD psychologist at Leiden University. She earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology in Barcelona in 2016. With extensive international experience in Colombia, the US, Spain, and the Netherlands, she promotes conscious success and empowerment among global professionals. Focusing on mental health and well-being, Dr. Lourido supports PhD candidates in navigating the challenges of building a fulfilling career. 

• Workshop 3: How to present your PhD research

This workshop offers researchers a safe environment to practice their presentation skills in front of a limited audience. Not only does this workshop provide you with the opportunity to get feedback on the way you present your research, you also have the chance to discuss certain issues you encounter in your research with academics and get their views on it.

Spots are limited for this workshop

13:00-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:30 Parallel workshops

• Workshop 1: Case law review with Nvivo – Tine van Hof

NVivo, a software programme for qualitative data analysis, is often used in the social sciences for analysing interviews. However, it can also be useful for legal research. In this workshop, the speaker will share her own experiences with using NVivo for case law review and will share her thoughts on which kind of legal research projects would benefit from using NVivo.

Tine Van Hof is a guest professor and a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp (Belgium). She holds a PhD from the same University. Her research interests include family law, private international law, and children’s rights law.

• Workshop 2: How to conduct a focus group – Leontine Bruijnen

The focus group method involves interviewing and observing members of a (composite) group. Focus groups can be an effective way to obtain more (in-depth) information on a particular topic. In this workshop, the presenter will discuss what the focus group method entails and share some practical insights based on her own experiences

Leontine Bruijnen is a PhD researcher and teaching assistant at the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp (Belgium). Her research interests lie in the fields of private international law, family law and migration law. Between February 2023 and December 2024, Leontine worked on FAMIMOVE, a European project on the coordination between international family law and migration law. As part of this project, she conducted several focus groups.

• Workshop 3: Introduction to quantitative data analysis – Peter van der Zwan

In this hands-on workshop we will cover three important dimensions of data analysis using an existing dataset. First, we will analyse some basic properties of this dataset by performing a descriptive analysis. Second, we will create some visualizations to properly show the trends and patterns. Third, we will perform some more advanced (regression) analyses. For this workshop, it is important to bring your laptop with you, and to have Excel installed on your computer.

Peter van der Zwan is an associate professor at the Department of Business Studies at Leiden Law School. His (empirical) research focuses mainly on entrepreneurship. Peter has a quantitative background in econometrics.

15:45-16:00 Closing

You can get an impression of what to expect further by reading this news item on the previous edition.