Current PhD projects

ACCESS4ALL

The study examines whether similarity between policymakers and lobbyists (in terms of background such as age, gender, ethnicity, and education) influences access to decision-makers in the EU, and how this may affect policy outcomes.

Prof. Iskander De Bruycker is leading in this project.

The project has received funding from NWO.

A coalition of hawks and doves? Explaining military receptiveness to civil society calls for transparency around the use of force

The Hawks and Doves project examines military receptiveness to NGO calls for transparency in Western European countries. It aims to understand the conditions under which military officials are willing to cooperate with civil society to improve transparency around the use of military force and its consequences.

The project is lead by Dr. Yf Reykers and Dr. Francesca Colli.

The project is funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation’s special programme on Security, Society and the State.

Care matters: making and valuing home in a mobile world

Dr. Lauren Wagner received a NWO Aspasia Grant for the project Care matters: making and valuing home in a mobile world. Care matters explores how the labour of caring for a home is changing along with increasingly mobile and partial practices of dwelling. 

Climares

The project examines how vulnerable communities in African countries can better prepare for climate change by improving access to accurate and actionable climate information. It focuses on co-creating knowledge with local groups to strengthen resilience and support livelihoods.

Prof. Valentina Mazzucato is involved in this project.

The project has received funding from NWO. 

Deliberation Laboratory (DeLab)

Deliberation Laboratory (DeLab) is a four-year research project led by Prof. John Parkinson and colleagues at the University of Göttingen.

With Deliberation Laboratory (DeLab), we develop a transformative online testing environment that allows us to explain the nature, causes, and consequences of citizens’ perceptions in deliberative public, online dialogue across languages. 

EMBRACing changE - Overcoming Blockages and Advancing Democracy in the European Neighbourhood

The research project EMBRACing changE (Overcoming Blockages and Advancing Democracy in the European Neighbourhood) aims to respond to the counter-democracy trends after the coloured revolutions and the Arab Spring. It does so through an inter-disciplinary, multi-method and cross-regional assessment of both blockages to and drivers of democratisation in 12 case study countries across Eastern Europe, Southern Caucasus, Western Balkans, Northern Africa and the Middle East.

The project is led by Dr. Giselle Bosse.

This project has received funding from Horizon Europe.

FeMMiWork

The project examines the overlooked role of women in postwar labour migration from southern to northwestern Europe. It reconstructs their experiences and contributions using archival research and personal histories, highlighting how gender and identity shaped their work and migration journeys.

Dr. Brigitte le Normand is leading in this project.

The project has received an ERC Consolidator grant.

Generative Enhanced Next-Generation Intelligent Understanding Systems (GENIUS) lab

The lab will co-develop generative, human-AI collaborative knowledge engineering methods and techniques for distinct yet highly interweaved knowledge engineering steps: collaborative knowledge synthesis; integration and linking of distributed knowledge fragments; integration of structured knowledge in generative AI models; trustworthy conversational AI using FAIR data and services; and hybrid human-AI ethics. These methods and techniques are designed, developed, experimented with, evaluated and validated in a variety of contexts.

‍The project is a collaboration between Delft University of Technology, Maastricht University, dsm–firmenich, and Kickstart AI.

Making Clinical Sense

Making Clinical Sense describes, analyses, rethinks and redesigns the material conditions of learning sensory, bodily skills. By attending to the everyday material practices of training doctors (such as the use of physical models, blackboard drawing, making and watching video, searching online images and peer-to-peer learning) across place and over time, the research team offers unique insights into how the way people learn connects with what they learn. Making Clinical Sense has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 678390).

Moving animals: A History of Science, Media and Policy in the Twentieth Century

Moving animals: A History of Science, Media and Policy in the Twentieth Century is a five-year research project led by Prof. Raf de Bont.

The project – sponsored by an NWO Vici grant – studies changing human-nature relations by focusing on human involvement with ‘wild’ animals that move (or are being moved) over great distances. 

NanoBubbles: how, when and why does science fail to correct itself?

Prof. Cyrus Mody received a Synergy Grant in 2020 for his project NanoBubbleS: how, when and why does science fail to correct itself?. The project investigates how, when and why science fails to correct itself.

PRICELESS

Adapting innovative privacy-preserving technologies to allow for data, information and intelligence sharing between private and public organizations, PRICELESS improves resilience through better standards, controls, regulation, and policing.

The project is led by Dr. Christoph Rausch. 

The project has received funding from NWO. 

PURE3D

PURE3D is a three-year project funded by the PDI-SSH (Platform Digitale Infrastructuur–Social Sciences and Humanities) with a mission to advance the virtual research environment through the development of an access infrastructure for viewing interactive Digital Heritage and Digital Humanities 3D content online. It is led by Prof. Susan Schreibman and Dr. Costas Papadopoulos.

Towards EU economic statecraft? Party-political cleavages on geoeconomic instruments

Examining how the EU’s growing use of geoeconomic tools (such as trade measures and industrial policy) shapes internal political dynamics, the project analyses party-political divisions around these instruments to better understand the challenges to coherent and legitimate EU policymaking in a more competitive global context.

The project is led by Prof. Anna Herranz Surralles. 

The project has received an NWO Open Competition M grant of €400,000. 

Trustworthy AI for Media Lab (TAIM)

The TAIM lab brings together two of the strongest groups on personalisation and recommender systems in the Netherlands, the University of Amsterdam and the University of Maastricht, and a leading media organisation, RTL, to develop trustworthy and personalised media.

WELL-ASIA

The project examines how wellbeing is being commercialised as “wellness” in Southeast Asia, focusing on places like Singapore, Chiang Mai, and Ubud. It explores how this growing industry shapes local economies, global travel, and people’s ideas about health and wellbeing.

The project is led by Dr. Megha Amrith. 

The project has awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant. 

Individual research projects

Below you can find a list of PhD candidates that conduct their projects individually, outside a larger project.

Part-time PhD candidates in European Studies, campus Brussels

At our Brussels campus, you can pursue a PhD alongside your work. Below you can find a list of names of people who participate in this scheme, and their research projects.