Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance

Ozan Alakavuklar is Associate Professor at the school of governance. As an immigrant academic Ozan attempts to access, support and work with/for activist communities that address the most urgent and current issues of our contemporary society and that are considered as sources of social innovation and social change. To this end, he is working on projects that bring various community initiatives and grassroots organisations together.

Viola Bex-Reimert is an associate professor at Utrecht University. Her research focuses on the relationship between general administrative law and the specific areas of administrative law, and in particular the relationship between regular administrative law and migration law. In line with that, she also conducts research on questions of extra-legal coordination in administrative law. In the field of migration law, she conducts research on the credibility of asylum claims, regulations and policies surrounding the deportation of aliens and the revocation of Dutch citizenship. Her research is both legal and empirical in nature.

Dr. Rianne Dekker works as Assistant Professor at the Utrecht University School of Governance. She studies the intersections between social media, migration and migration management. This includes how migrants and refugees use social media in migration decision-making and how governments use big data analysis to map and manage migration. 

Hanneke van Eijken is Assistant Professor in European law. She is an expert of European citizenship and free movement rights of European citizens, within the European Union. Her research focusses on European asylum law, and migration from outside the EU and the European Common Asylum System. Hanneke is a member of the Dutch Advisory Council on International Affairs for the Dutch Government. 

Paul Minderhoud is Professor (0.2) in Regular Migration law at the Department of International and European Law. Regular migration law deals with the admission and legal position of foreign nationals (not being asylum seekers) in the Netherlands. Almost all aspects of regular Dutch migration law are now governed by international and European legislation. These international rules and agreements raise important questions of a legal nature that are part of the research of this chair. Important subjects that are addressed in this context are: free movement, border control, family reunification, study, long-term resident status and return.

Salvo Nicolosi works as Assistant Professor in European and International Law at Utrecht University Law School, where he is also a Researcher within the Utrecht Centre for Regulation and Enforcement in Europe (RENFORCE). His research is currently focusing on the reform of the Common European Asylum System and the New Pact on Migration and Asylum.

Barbara Oomen holds a chair in the Sociology of Human Rights, and is one of the leaders of the Focus Group on Migration and Societal Change. She is the project leader of 'Cities of Refuge', a 5 year VICI research project funded by NWO. Barbara works with an interdisciplinary team of migration scholars on the role of the law in the governance of migration. Migration-related publications focus on the role of transnational city networks in managing migration and the role of local authorities in reshaping the international law of migration

Yousra Rahmouni Elidrissi is Assistant Professor in the School of Governance. Her research is situated at the crossroads of Social Movements and Organization Studies. It focuses on the dynamics of solidarity and resistance within grassroots’ communities engaged in social change efforts and examines in particular the significance of bodies and embodiment in activists’ practices. In relation to Migration and Social Change her interest lies in community spaces of public encounter (such as De Voorkamer) that promote a fluid and dynamic conception of integration through everyday practices, fostering political and cultural participatio from both refugee and hosting members of local neighborhood.

Dina Siegel is Professor of Criminology at the Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology at Utrecht University. She received her PhD in cultural anthropology at the VU University Amsterdam and has published on migration, crimes of mobility, human smuggling and trafficking, mobile banditry and more. She is currently involved in the European IMOBEX project that focuses on criminal groups from Eastern Europe with a special focus on human trafficking. 

Ekaterina R. Rashkova is a tenured Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics at the Public Governance and Management unit at Utrecht University School of Governance. She earned her PhD in Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, in 2010 for a dissertation entitled ‘Political Learning and the Number of Parties: Why Age Matters’, which won the UniCredit and Universities Foundation Best CEE PhD Thesis Award in May 2011. She is currently working on how migrants are politically integrated (or not) in their receiving country, and how domestic political parties interact with their diasporas abroad.