In my research I try to find (legal) solutions to today's societal problems using the law (torts, civil procedure) in a creative amnner while taking in inpsiration from elsewhere (empircial legal studies, law & psychology, etc) to cross traditional barriers, if needed. As of 2013 I am a member (formerly program director) of UCALL, the Utrecht Centre for Accountability and Liability Law, a multidimensional research team focussing on the shifting boundaries of liability rules, both within the domains of public law as well as private law.
In the past years I have been conducting research in the areas of tort law, civil procedure and adjudication. After my Ph.D. thesis on the burden of proof in liability law (2001) I worked on a NWO funded project (SaRO) on standardisation of damages, leading to several publications (Giesen, Kamminga, Barendrecht 2001), while subsequently receiving a NWO research grant (PPS) to work on a book on the liability of supervisors. This project was finished in 2005 (Giesen 2005a). My inaugural lecture at Utrecht University (Giesen 2005b) combines elements of tort law and civil procedure with comparative law and psychological insights. In 2007, I’ve been working on self-regulation in private law relationships for the Dutch association of lawyers (NJV) in the form of a so-called pre-advies (Giesen 2007). Liability of regulatory authorities was next on the agenda, along with a 'preadvies' on proportional liability (Giesen & Tjong Tjin Tai 2008) and an edited volume on a more empirical appproach to private law (Van Boom, Giesen & Verheij 2008; a second, more extensive edition appeared in 2013) and one on the future role of the Dutch Supreme Court (Hol, Giesen & Kristen 2011).