Our Mission
As an interuniversity research school, the ELS Academy is focused on educating and supporting researchers who are interested in empirically exploring questions that are relevant to legal scholarship. The goal is to stimulate and strengthen empirical legal research and its applications. In the Netherlands, the topics and research methods that make up empirical legal studies are diverse, comprising for instance both qualitative and quantitative methods.
The mission of the ELS Academy centers around community building with the following pillars:
- Learning
- Exchange
- Collaboration
- Visibility
Mission
Learning
Our mission is to support a growing community of legal scholars who explore empirical questions in their research. Although empirical methods are not yet mainstream in legal scholarship, the Law Sector Plan has paved the way for their broader adoption. To build on this momentum, the ELS Academy continues to provide legal scholars with a comprehensive toolbox and a community of peers and experts from whom they can learn.
See Research trainingMission
Exchange
Our mission is to develop a countrywide network for empirical legal research in which Dutch law schools collaborate to share expertise and course offerings. The ELS Academy has established a PhD education framework that allows PhD candidates from one faculty to take ELS courses at another, free of charge. This exchange strengthens cross-fertilization between universities and promotes open sharing of complementary expertise.
See Graduate School CoursesMission
Collaboration
Our mission is to give impetus to collaboration in empirical legal research projects. Facilitated by the Law Sector Plan, the Netherlands has seen a rise in empirical legal scholars over the past few years. The ELS Academy focuses on bringing them together in a national community. This strengthens collaboration between law schools as well as interdisciplinary collaboration, as scholars from other disciplines, in particular the social and behavioral sciences, are part of this community.
See Partner UniversitiesMission
Visibility
Our mission is to be a national and public platform that is at the forefront of empirical legal studies worldwide. The ELS Academy showcases the empirical legal research that is being done and the ELS education that is being offered in the Netherlands. As a leading platform, it is focused on international collaboration and has initiated the foundation of the European Society for Empirical Legal Studies.
See European Society for Empirical Legal Studies