Faculty of Law employs many researchers who are among the best in their respective fields, at both national and international level.
This hall of fame lists the top researchers who received prestigious awards, grants, prizes and honorary appointments for their scientific achievements during their time at the faculty.
ERC Starting Grant
ERC Consolidator Grant
Members of the KNAW are chosen on the basis of their academic achievements. They are appointed for life. Every year, the KNAW selects new members who have been nominated by people from outside the Academy. Below is a list of all KNAW members from the Faculty of Law, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Catrien Bijleveld, Professor
Arend Soeteman, Professor Emeritus
Thomas Spijkerboer, Professor
Ben Vermeulen, Professor
The Young Academy
In March 2018, Barbora Holá was officially installed as a new member to The Young Academy, a dynamic and innovative group of top young scientists and scholars. The Young Academy operates independently within the KNAW. Members are appointed for a five-year period. Barbora Holá has an interdisciplinary focus and studies transitional justice after atrocities, in particular (international) criminal trials, sentencing of international crimes, rehabilitation of war criminals and life after trial at international criminal tribunals.
This grant enables talented researchers who have recently gained their PhD to expand innovative ideas.
2023
Climate lawyer Tim Bleeker is currently researching the obligation of companies to align their business models with climate objectives. His focus is on the requirements for corporate climate transition plans and the enforcement mechanisms for greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.
Assistant professor EU law Dion Kramer receives the grant for his protect titled Whom to Shelter? (Re)Bordering Homelessness Support in the European Union. He will research the rights of homeless EU citizens and explain how local governments in the Netherlands and other EU Member States reorganise their homelessness support programmes in response to the growing numbers of homeless EU citizens.
2022
Inequalities in youth criminal justice decisions are well-documented and disproportionally impact socially disadvantaged children. In his research, Yannick van den Brink explores how inequalities in youth criminal justice decisions are produced, how they move across different stages of the process and interact with inequalities in the educational system and child welfare system.
2021
Janna Wessels’ research explores how exclusionary migration control interests subtly find their way into human rights jurisprudence and transform it ‘from within’. Employing legal discourse analysis, the project seeks a better understanding of the (tacit) mechanisms that governments use to influence human rights case law on migration.
Elanie Rodermond conducts empirical research on women's pathways into and out of terrorism and violent extremism. To do so, she combines a variety of datasources, such as interviews with women detained at the terrorist wing, files of the probation service and data from Statistics Netherlands.
2020
Marleen Weulen Kranenbarg receives the Veni for the research “Choosing the right side: factors leading to non-criminal hacking." By examining life-course characteristics of ethical hackers, as well as situational and cultural factors, this study will show how and why ethical hackers choose to stay on the good side of the law and use their skills in cybersecurity.
2019
2018
Lieneke Slingenberg
Karin de Vries investigates the role of nationality in non-discrimination law.
2015
Anja Eleveld investigates labour law protection for recipients of social assistance, who are obliged to do unpaid work.
2014
Vere van Koppen investigates the correlates of adult-onset offending.
2013
Barbara Holá compares the sentencing of international crimes by international and national courts.
2012
Ester Herlin-Karnell investigates the function of the EU principle of proportionality as a balancing mechanism for ensuring good governance within the European (multi-speed) area of freedom, security and justice
2011
Peter Kamminga empirically studies the relationship between the kinds of legal contracts used and the efficiency of infrastructure development.
2007
Wouter Veraart's research is centered around the question how law should respond to historic injustice.
2005
Alette Smeulers was conducting empirical research into perpetrators of international crimes such as genocide and war crimes, and how they might be held to account.
2004
Elies van Sliedregt's research interest lies in the field of international, European and comparative criminal law.
2002
Elisabetta Manunza
About NWO Innovational Research Incentives Scheme laureates
Innovative research produces valuable results: it may open up new areas of research or put an unexpected perspective on existing fields. The aim of the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme is to give an extra boost to innovative research through three categories of grants: Veni, Vidi and Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered). The terms refer to how far the researcher has progressed in his/her research career.
Researchers who are eligible for this grant are more experienced. They are given the opportunity to set up an innovative line of research and appoint other researchers to that end.
2023
Lieneke Slingenberg uses her Vidi-grant to examine the legislative power of the executive in migration law. She maps de scope of this power and evaluates whether this power is sufficiently constrained, in line with fundamental rule of law principles.
2020
Barbara Holá and her team explore long-term psycho-social legacies of mass atrocity crimes committed during repressions and wars, and a role of transitional justice mechanisms in their intergenerational transmission.
2009
Elies van Sliedregt aims to undertake systematic and comparative research into international criminal law as applied by national courts, into whether, and to what extent, national courts adopt and should adopt international standards and liability theories.
Gareth Davies examines the interaction between international trade, the environment and human rights, and national sovereignty.
About NWO Innovational Research Incentives Scheme laureates
Innovative research produces valuable results: it may open up new areas of research or put an unexpected perspective on existing fields. The aim of the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme is to give an extra boost to innovative research through three categories of grants: Veni, Vidi and Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered). The terms refer to how far the researcher has progressed in his/her research career.
Any researcher seeking the honour of a Vici grant will have an outstanding record of service and have demonstrated the ability to develop innovative lines of research. The Vici grant gives established researchers the chance to build up an innovative research group.
2012
Thomas Spijkerboer research is about the relation between migration law and the rising number of border deaths.
2010
Sarah van Walsum conducted research on migration and asylum law through the lens of (cross-border) family relations and family norms
2018
2017
2015
Lily Rueda Guzman conducts research into sanctions under the ICC's Principle of Complementarity, focussing on Colombia as a case study.
2013
Anne Smit takes part in a multidisciplinary (family law-criminology) research project that will generate evidence-based recommendations for handling divorce cases based on empirical findings on child sexual abuse allegations, and the implications of legal interventions.
Linda Kesteloo studies legal safeguards for reliable witness evidence, partially from a comparative perspective. This research aims at providing a conceptual framework for both criminal lawyers and (legal) psychologists, making it a multidisciplinary project that contributes to the debate between the two disciplines.
2012
Elanie Rodermond studies the process of desistance among female offenders and aims to explain why and how women stop committing crimes.
Martijn Stronks investigates the role of time in contemporary migration law. One of the central questions is why migrants usually can receive stronger residence rights only after progress of time.
2007
Johan Wolswinkel was searching for so-called ‘general rules of allocation law’ applying to any award of a limited number of rights by public authorities (authorisations, financial grants, etc.). In this research, results from economic resource allocation theory bridged the gap between these general allocation rules and general principles of law.
2007
Songül Mutluer is researching the possibilities for increasing return in cases of government tendering.
Bahija Aarrass is researching the influences of human rights on the law relating to aliens. This is because universal human rights also include provisions relating to the just treatment of refugees.
VU University Research Chair (URC) is a selective and privileged appointment as full professor. The chair has been created to recognize and reward outstanding scholars currently at the rank equivalent to associate professor who are acknowledged by their peers as upcoming leaders in their research field.
2025
Anja Eleveld explores how the law functions for people with precarious incomes. What do rules in labour and social security law mean in practice for flexible workers, low-income self-employed individuals, and benefit recipients? Eleveld: “I combine legal analysis with interviews, observations and data analysis to understand how legislation plays out for people in vulnerable situations.” As part of her URC chair, she is now turning to a new question: how can social security law respond to the consequences of climate change and contribute to a more sustainable and just society?
2021
Lieneke Slingenberg was appointed Professor of Migrants and the Rule of Law within the VU University Research Chair programme on 1 January 2022. She studies the regulation of migrants' lives from the perspective of the rule of law. She studies how law is both a governmental instrument to shape migrants’ lives (‘rule by law’) and an important limit on governmental power (‘rule of law’).
2020
Britta van Beers is professor of biolaw and bioethics. In December 2019 she was appointed on a VU URC chair. In her research and teaching she explores the legal-philosophical questions raised by the governance of technological developments in fields such as human genetics, reproductive technologies and neurotechnology. Of special interest to her are questions related to the meaning of personhood and humanity in these contexts.
2017
Jacobien Rutgers researches the sharing economy and its new business models, such as Airbnb and Uber. These models are legally disruptive as they challenge the current form of consumer protection. Jacobien Rutgers examines new developments in conflict resolution in European consumer law and the challenges faced by European regulators as a result of the sharing economy.
2014
We cannot avoid it any longer. With the crisis in Greece and with Italy left isolated as African refugees flood the country, does the EU have a shared responsibility or not? And if so, can it be incorporated in an integrated system of justice? And how can the EU achieve a common sense of fairness in its development of criminal law? Lawyer Ester Herlin-Karnell is conducting research into this area on which the very future of the union depends.
Lieke Coenraad is appointed as full professor in Civil Law - Conflict handling - in 2011, on Fenna Diemer-Lindeboom chair. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam has launched the Fenna Diemer-Lindeboom (FDL) chair programme in order to promote female scientific talent on its way to the top and to address the lack of female professors. Female assistant and associate professors are proposed for the FDL chair by the faculties and are appointed for a maximum period of 5 years. The FDL professor will then be offered a full professorship if she has performed successfully. All FDL-candidates of the first period 2005-2010 have been installed as professor during or after the FDL-professorship.
(1913-2004) studied Law at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and obtained a PhD in 1937. During WWII she defended people who were arrested for their resistance work, together with her husband. Fenna Diemer-Lindeboom studied the bible on the position of women in society and published several books about the relation between men and women. Mostly she is known for her fight for passive women voting rights in her party, the Anti-Revolutionaire Partij (ARP).
VU Amsterdam awards honorary doctorates each year to those who made outstanding contributions in the field of science, politics or culture. In 2007 the book 'Het is ons een eer en een genoegen' of Wim Berkelaar was published. The book provides an overview of the honory doctorates awarded between 1930 and 2007 and an extensive background report. Below is a list of all recipients of honorary doctorates awarded by the Faculty of Law.
2015
Fons Orie
2010
Michael Tonry
2005
Adriaan Bos
The Societal Impact Awards spotlight research being carried out at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam that has an impact on society. The Junior Societal Impact Award is for a PhD candidate who has completed a PhD dissertation at VU Amsterdam within the last year which could have a potentially significant impact on society. The Senior Societal Impact Award is presented to a researcher at VU Amsterdam who has had a longer career and spent several years working on research with a significant societal impact. The awards are presented by the Rector at the annual Dies Natalis celebration.
Victor van der Geest received Junior Societal Impact Award in 2011. Victor graduated with the highest distinction on his dissertation ‘Working their Way into Adulthood’. He investigated a group of 270 (male) juveniles, their family backgrounds, problems and criminal and work career after their treatment in juvenile treatment facilities. His research has a considerable societal impact as it demonstrates that working has a positive influence on young men with a criminal past.
Copyright © VU