A successful PhD Day 2024 at the Europa Institute
On 20 June 2024, the Europa Institute held its annual PhD Day at the Gravensteen Building. This event brought together PhD candidates in European law to present their research projects, share input from preliminary findings and engage in discussions with their peers and supervisors. The day was filled with interesting presentations and provided a platform for exchanging ideas and constructive feedback.
The event began with opening remarks from Moritz Jesse, who highlighted the importance of the opportunity to discuss PhD progress in an informal, open and supportive environment, where the candidates could receive valuable feedback on their work.
The programme was rich both in terms of the number of participants and the breadth of topics and disciplines covered by the different PhD candidates. The event opened with a presentation by Sinead Mulcahy, who shared information and plans for her project entitled 'From decision to action: European sovereignty and its place in constitutional theory', supervised by Luuk van Middelaar and Vestert Borger. After that, Talha Gunay, supervised by Jorrit Rijpma and Melanie Fink, discussed 'Borders of judicial protection: ensuring the right to an effective remedy for returnees in the EU return cooperation'.
The second session was devoted to the principle of solidarity by Corlijn Reijgwart and her project entitled 'EU solidarity and citizen perception of the European Union', supervised by Armin Cuvyers and Vestert Borger. Following this, presentations focused on the judicial reforms in the EU accession states. There were presentations by Theo Tsomidis, supervised by Rick Lawson & Darinka Piqani, and external PhD candidate Endri Mykaj, whose focuses on the judicial vetting process in Albania as part of his PhD research on the 'EU rule of law promotion in the Western Balkans through judicial reforms'.
The afternoon also included three panel discussions, the first of which focused on various topics. Veronika Yefremova introduced us to the world of commercial arbitration, with her project entitled 'A tale of two systems: bridging the differences between international commercial arbitration and EU law', supervised by Stefaan Van den Bogaert and Freya Baetens. Ties Dams showed us his plans for an interdisciplinary research project focusing on the role of power narrative in European geopolitics since 1989, supervised by Luuk van Middelaar and Joris Larik.
The second afternoon panel delved deeper into the topic of human rights protection, where we first of all welcomed new PhD candidate Marijana Saraf, supervised by Rick Lawson and Gelijn Molier, with her topic entitled 'The right to personal autonomy in multicultural Europe: discrimination on grounds of culture'. Following this, Elena Kukovica shared her preliminary plans for a comparative study into regional human rights treaties and regional free movement regimes and their potential to offer additional legal protection to environmental refugees. Also focusing on regional perspectives, PhD candidate based at Utrecht University Ali Abdillah discussed a method for 'Designing a smart legal framework for ASEAN regional economic integration'. His PhD research is co-supervised by Sybe de Vries from Utrecht University and Armin Cuyvers.
The last panel on the agenda included another starter presentation by a new external PhD candidate, Lisa Reinsberg, supervised by Rick Lawson and Joe Powderly, with her project entitled 'Assessing the fairness of international human rights complaint mechanisms: due process and access to justice for individuals'. Lastly, Emma de Vries closed the event with an interesting talk on her project entitled 'The position, scope and substance of academic freedom in the ECHR', supervised by Vicky Kosta and Tarlach McGonagle.
Each presentation was followed by an animated discussion, giving our PhD candidates valuable feedback from peers and supervisors that will help them make progress in their research. The variety of topics covered reflects the multidisciplinary, multicultural nature of the Europa Institute’s research environment and showcases the excellence of the young talent within the department.