Dr Donna Yates

Dr Donna Yates holds the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Heritage and Emerging Crime at Maastricht University and is a member of the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology. 

Yates is a leading authority on crime related to cultural heritage, with expertise in cultural property crime, antiquities trafficking, art crime, and the exploitation of cultural goods markets for money laundering, white collar crime, and financial crime. Her research combines criminological theory with empirical investigation of how looted, stolen, and trafficked objects move through commercial spaces. Her current research focuses on new and emerging cultural heritage crimes.

She has led and contributed to major funded research projects on crime and cultural heritage, with support from the European Research Council, Horizon Europe, the Leverhulme Trust, the British Academy, Fulbright, and the Dutch Research Council, among others. She was Principal Investigator of the European Research Council (ERC)-funded project TRANSFORM (2020-2025), which examined the market interfaces through which illicit objects acquire legitimacy. She currently leads work packages on the Horizon Europe WIDER-funded project REVITALISER and the Dutch Research Council (NWO)-funded project PRICELESS, both addressing crime related to cultural goods and cultural property protection. She is Vice Chair of the COST Action CPP4ALL (Cultural Property Protection for All) and serves on the Management Committee of the COST Action CRICULT (Cultural Heritage in Crisis).

She holds doctorates in Criminology from the University of Glasgow and in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge.

Dr Yates has advised governments and international organisations including UNESCO, UNODC, and the European Commission on cultural property crime and art market regulation. She welcomes inquiries regarding research collaboration, policy consultation, and advisory roles, and selectively supervises doctoral researchers.