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The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Veni grant of up to €320,000 each to ten researchers of the University of Groningen and the UMCG. The Veni grants are designed for outstanding researchers who have recently gained a PhD.

Dr Michelle Bruijn and Dr Kostia Gorobets have been awarded a Veni grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). Bruijn will spend the grant on research into protection against evictions. Gorobets will use the awarded amount for legal philosophical research on an alternative version of international law in Russia.

The research project ‘Market Organisation of the Dutch Energy System (MODES)’, in which Dr Ceciel Nieuwenhout of the Faculty of Law is participating, has been awarded funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

The Department of Constitutional Law, Administrative Law and Public Administration (Maarten Bouwmeester, LL.M., Prof. Kars de Graaf, Prof. Bert Marseille and Dr Marc Wever) of the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen will conduct research commissioned by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. They will investigate the consequences of the anticipated amendments to the strengthening of the safeguarding function of the Dutch General Administrative Law Act (Awb).

A consortium to study the socio-economic impact of hydrogen, including three researchers at the University of Groningen, has been granted 12 million euros from the NWO.

Luuk de Boer studies ‘sovereign citizens’, people who reject the government’s authority. For his research, he is staying in St. Louis, one of the most segregated cities in the US. The gap between rich and poor is immense. De Boer is not there for his sovereigns research specifically, although the US is certainly an interesting place in that respect, because the group of sovereign citizens on the other side of the pond is huge.

On 19 June 2024, the Jantina Tammes School of Digital Society, Technology and AI (JTS) celebrated its birthday that concluded with the presentation of the JTS Early Career Researcher Prize. The prize was awarded to five winners, including associate professor of IT law Evgeni Moyakine.

On Tuesday 2 July, Prof. Fatih Ibili was installed as Advocate General at the Supreme Court of the Netherlands. He combines his new position with the professorship at the UG.

Bert Marseille, Professor of Public Administration at our Faculty, has been appointed chairman of the supervisory committee for the WODC study 'Evaluation of Foundation for Consumer Disputes Committee (SGC)'.

Nina Mileva, Associate Professor of Public International Law, talks about her mini-quiz recap strategy, called the "Quick Review Quiz.

Marlies Hesselman, assistant professor of international law at our Faculty, acted as a consultant for the National Human Rights Institute on their first report on the Dutch, regional and international legal framework for the 'right to a healthy environment' in the Netherlands. The report was published on 20 June.

What exactly does the right to demonstrate entail? What may and must the government do in the event of demonstrations, and what rights and obligations do protesters have? Demonstration expert Berend Roorda receives questions on this subject almost daily from the media and legal practitioners, especially now that protests are very topical in the Netherlands. With a new website, he makes all knowledge and regulations accessible to everyone.

Maarten Bouwmeester, PhD candidate at our Faculty’s Department of Constitutional Law, Administrative Law and Public Administration, has been awarded a Cultural Fund grant for a research stay. He will be spending three months in Australia next year thanks to the scholarship to work on his doctoral research ‘System failure in the digital welfare state’.

After summer, the Young Academy Groningen will again welcome seven new members. Their research covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from speech technology to the philosophy of ethics and politics and polymer chemistry.

On 10 June, the State Commission on the Rule of Law, of which Prof. Marc Hertogh of our faculty is a member, published its advisory report on the functioning of the rule of law. In the report, titled 'The Broken Promise of the Rule of Law: Ten Proposals for Improvement with an Eye on the Citizen', the State Commission concludes that the rule of law has been long neglected by the government.

On 6 and 7 June, the Faculty of Law at the University of Groningen hosted a delegation from the Arts Faculty of Macquarie University (which also houses the Law branch at that university). The focus of the strategic partnership between the UG and Macquarie University is on joint doctorates.

Today, the report “Beyond Ecstasy” by the State Committee on MDMA was presented to outgoing Medical Care Minister Pia Dijkstra. In the report, the State Committee calls for larger-scale research into the use of MDMA in therapy for people suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

With this initiative, the researchers aim to meet the growing need for information about the right to freedom of peaceful assembly (the right to protest). The website consists of an extensive list of answers to frequently asked questions, a knowledge base with the most recent case law and an advice tool on the basis of which free customized legal advice can be obtained. To develop the website and keep it up-to-date for three years, funding was granted by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations in the fall of 2023. The website is independent; the Ministry has not interfered with its content. All information on the website is available in Dutch and freely accessible to everyone.

Prof. Willem Janssen, Extraordinary Professor of Procurement Law at our Faculty, has been invited by the European Commission to share his expertise. He will give his views on future public procurement at the meeting on 30 May 2024, where all EU member states are represented.

The Women in Solidarity for Energy (WISE) project, led by Dr Marlies Hesselman of the Faculty of Law among others, has been awarded funding from the European Union's Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) funding system.

Aurélie Villanueva, assistant professor European Union Law at our Faculty, has been awarded the Proxime Accessit Prize of the European law Faculties Association (ELFA). She received the prize for her dissertation titled ‘Culture in European Union Law: Between Market and Society’, which she defended last year at the European University Institute in Florence.

On 17 May 2024, the Faculty of Law was honoured to receive a delegation from Fakultas Hukum Universitas Indonesia.

Lolke Braaksma, assistant professor of environmental law at our Faculty, has won one of the five Research Prizes of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation. He was awarded the prize for his PhD thesis 'The programmatic approach in environmental law: Towards a legal design in the European Union and the Netherlands that pursues sustainability'.

Prof. Brigit Toebes and Dr Michelle Bruijn have been awarded a grant from funding organization Zonmw. The project is titled 'Alcohol regulation: navigating between allowing and prohibiting'.

Aline Klingenberg, professor of IT-Law at the Faculty of Law, was recently appointed by the Executive Board of the University of Groningen as a member of the Temporary Committee on Student Data.

Dr Marlies Hesselman and David Patterson, LL.M., are co-authors of a publication in the leading health journal The Lancet. The article they co-authored is titled “Collective action and legal mobilisation for the right to health in the climate crisis”.

Marc Hertogh has been appointed as faculty professor at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance of Utrecht University as of 1 May 2024. He will fill the position part-time and will also remain Professor of Law and Society at the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen.

Manolis Kotzampasakis has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright Schuman Grant for doctoral research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law.

The persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, the wars in former Yugoslavia, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, terrorist attacks, sexual violence: all raise the question of who is capable of such things. What kind of people are behind these atrocities and what motivates them? Alette Smeulers, professor of international crimes at the University of Groningen, researches perpetrators of extreme forms of mass and political violence. Her conclusion: 'The biggest mistake we can make is thinking that a perpetrator is completely different from ourselves.'