About us

The Montaigne Centre was founded in 2013 and currently has around 70 researchers, including more than 20 PhD candidates, who are affiliated with the various departments of the School of Law and are active in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, international law, European law, human rights, criminal law and private law. The Centre also has a number of researchers who conduct legal theory and legal sociology research. The composition is therefore diverse, and this results in original and multidimensional research, from the perspective of various legal areas and legal disciplines. Our researchers also use various methodologies (with an important emphasis on empirical-legal research methods).

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.

The research questions that the Montaigne Centre focuses on play a role within all sub-domains of national, European and international law, and it often does not useful to investigate them on the basis of monodisciplinary research. Traditional legal research methods, such as literature study and analysis of legislation and case law, are only partly suitable for answering these research questions. That is why legal theoretical, legal philosophical and comparative legal research is also conducted; critical perspectives are also relevant.  Furthermore, Empirical Legal Studies (ELS) is an important part of the Montaigne Centre, and more and more researchers (also) have a background in other scientific disciplines, such as social sciences or economics, and have experience with qualitative or quantitative empirical research methods.

In addition, the Montaigne Centre actively seeks collaboration – with colleagues from other research groups within the Department of Law, with other departments within the Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance, with other faculties within Utrecht University, and with other universities – to fill existing gaps in knowledge and/or research skills and to further strengthen the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary nature of our own research.

At the departmental level, there is thematic collaboration with the other research groups. Many of our researchers are affiliated with the Utrecht ELS-Lab, where they share and expand their expertise in the field of Empirical Legal Studies.

At the university level, researchers are well represented in the university-wide, interdisciplinary Strategic Theme Institutions for Open Societies (IOS), in particular in the IOS platforms Contesting Governance, Security in Open Societies, Security in Open Societies, Behaviour and Institutions, Longtermism and Institutional Change and Fair Transitions. The theme of ‘Democracy’ is an important spearhead of IOS, with which Montaigne researchers fit in well; they conduct interdisciplinary research into ‘The future of democracies’ and ‘The democratic constitutional state from below’. Furthermore, a number of researchers are affiliated with two university-wide, interdisciplinary focus areas: Governing the Digital Society and Migration and Societal Change.

There is strong national collaboration with the faculties of Law of Radboud University and Leiden University on the theme of Conflict-Resolving Institutions (COI) – one of the themes within the national Sector Plan for Law that was established in 2018 under the auspices of the SSH Council.