20 November 2025

At the start of this academic year, the Faculty Board announced changes to the research portfolio. Dean Suzan Stoter, in her position as portfolio holder for research on the Faculty Board is responsible (like most deans at Leiden University) for the management of research policy. In addition to the changes already announced, as of January 2026, a Director of the Graduate School will be appointed and a Graduate School Management Board will be established. The aim of these changes is to adequately incorporate the activities of our Graduate School in the development of our faculty in the coming years.

New structure of Graduate School for Legal Studies

Our faculty has almost 400 PhD candidates, of which around 240 are external PhD candidates, spread across the various institutes and departments. This new generation of young researchers makes up a substantial section of our academic community and for that reason alone deserves our attention.

Moreover, the process of doing a PhD is constantly changing. New developments, both within Leiden University and beyond, call for appropriate solutions and policies that are tailored to our faculty. Key focus areas are quality control of research, adequate supervision of PhD candidates, as well as a pleasant and successful PhD programme for all PhD candidates (both internal and external). Other important points of attention are work pressure, a good working relationship between PhD candidates and their supervisors, and training for both PhD candidates and supervisors.

Director of the Graduate School

The Faculty Board has decided – following an open recruitment procedure – to appoint a Director of the Graduate School. The Board is pleased to announce that Katrien Klep will start in this new position on 1 January 2026. Katrien will play a key role in PhD policy. Among other matters, she will focus on assessing admission files of external PhD candidates, monitoring the progress and quality of dissertations, and actively looking for solutions in individual cases. She will be in close contact with the PhD candidates, the confidential counsellor for PhD candidates, the Head of Research Affairs, and the staff of the Graduate School.

Graduate School Management Board

To provide strategic direction and structural embedding for the Director of the Graduate School, the Faculty Board has also decided to establish a Graduate School Management Board. In this capacity, the Management Board will consist of the portfolio holder for research on the Faculty Board, an academic member, an external member, and a representative of the PhD candidates.

The Faculty Board is pleased that in addition to the portfolio holder for research on the Board, the following persons will be joining the Graduate School Management Board: Eric De Brabandere, Professor of International Dispute Settlement Law, as academic member; Maria-Lucia Rebrean, representing the PhD candidates; and Mark Rutgers, professor emeritus of social philosophy and former dean at the Faculty of Humanities, as external member.

The Management Board will advise the Director of the Graduate School on key areas and act as a sounding board. It will meet several times a year. One anticipated consequence of this change is that the Research Board will be able to focus more specifically on general research policy. Overlap with PhD policy will of course remain and that can be discussed in both bodies if necessary.

Katrien Klep

Dr Katrien Klep has worked at our faculty since 2016. She is Assistant Professor at the Department of Child Law and Health Law and Academic Coordinator of the Advanced Master in International Children’s Rights. Her research interests focus on human rights in practice and the combination of legal methods and qualitative social science methods.

Within the Institute of Private Law, Katrien has been a PhD coach for six years and as of 2024 she is one of three PhD Deans at our faculty. Katrien knows all about the challenges – related to content, the writing process, and personal matters – that are part and parcel of doing a PhD. She has a broad interest in research areas and will enjoy learning about the various topics that PhD candidates are studying at our faculty.

New PhD deans

The Graduate School currently has three PhD deans. This month, Cecily Rose, Associate Professor at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, succeeded Hilde Wermink as PhD Dean. From March 2026, Ekaterina Pannebakker, Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil Law, will succeed Katrien Klep and become PhD Dean. Together with Jim Been, Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, they complete the team. The PhD Deans supervise the progress of individual PhD candidates’ research and provide them with solicited and unsolicited advice.