Covid-19 and Social Science Research
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Sustaining Access to Justice in Europe: New Avenues for Costs and Funding
The team of the NWO Vici project ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ at Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University (Rotterdam), is organising the conference ‘Sustaining Access to Justice in Europe: New Avenues for Costs and Funding’ on 19 and 20 October 2023 at the Erasmus Paviljoen at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Access to civil justice is of paramount importance for enforcing citizens’ rights. At the heart of access to civil justice lies litigation funding and cost management. Yet, over the past decades, access to justice has been increasingly put under pressure due to retrenching governments, high costs of procedure, and the inefficiency of courts and justice systems. Within this context, the funding of litigation in Europe seems to be shifting from public to private sources. Private actors and innovative business models emerged to provide new solutions to the old problem of financial barriers of access to justice.
With the participation of policymakers, practitioners, academics, and civil society representatives from all over Europe and beyond, the conference seeks to delve deeper into the financial implications of access to justice and the different ways to achieve sustainable civil justice systems in Europe.
The topics addressed in this international academic conference will include the different methods of financing dispute resolution, particularly in the context of group litigation (third-party funding, crowdfunding, blockchain technologies), public interest litigation, developments in ADR/ODR, the new business models of legal professionals as well as law and economics aspects on litigation funding. The conference is supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).
Find the link to registration here.
Please find the preliminary conference programme below.
Call for papers Vici Conference Sustainable justice 2023.pdf
Conference_Programme_2023_(1).pdf (euciviljustice.eu)
Published: September 10, 2020
Together with Andrea Evers (professor of Health Psychology, Leiden University, Delft and Erasmus University), Xandra Kramer moderated a webinar on research practices during and after Covid-19 in the social sciences and humanities. The webinar took place on 10 September and was organised by the Dutch Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which Xandra is a member.
Panellists discussed the influence of Covid-19 on their research and research practices in general. It led to vivid and very interesting dicussions. While research practices and in particular international collaborations and field research is challenged, the pandemic and the opening up of more intensive online collaborations also creates opportunities. In particular for younger researchers and research communities in countries that are less versed in online communication, however, the pandemic has created uncertainties that need attention. The expectation is that the pandemic will continue to be topic of research in many areas of social sciences and will have a long-lasting effect on research practices.
These effects are also experienced by our research team. While it gave some food for thought (see also our blogposts on access to justice in times of corona and on collective redress and this webinar), it also hampers field research, research stays abroad, daily interaction between our team members as well as the participation in and organisation of live events that are more than the content of presentations only.
The recordings of the webinar (mostly English spoken, but parts in Dutch) are available here.