Lilian Tsourdi appointed as Professor of European Migration Law and Governance

The Executive Board has appointed Dr Lilian Tsourdi Professor of European Migration Law and Governance as of 1 March 2025. The Chair, embedded within the Department of European Law, responds to a growing demand for research, education, and interaction between science and society in the fields of mobility, migration, and asylum.

Tsourdi's research is embedded within the Maastricht Centre for European Law (MCEL) and interfaculty research groups, such as the Maastricht Centre for Citizenship, Migration and Development (MACIMIDE). She is currently Associate Professor and Jean Monnet Chair at our faculty and the joint editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Refugee Law. She has implemented interdisciplinary research projects as principal investigator funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO Veni and Hestia grants 2019-2023), or as work package leader funded by the EU (ongoing Horizon Europe grant, 2023-2026). More recently, she acquired a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant (2025-2029) on an interdisciplinary research line that will conceptualise and analyse soft enforcement of EU migration law.