This section provides an overview of the researchers who make up the ERC research team, as well as the Advisory Expert Committee supporting the project. The ERC research team also benefits from the opportunity to engage with a wide range of stakeholders working on the issues at the heart of the research project, at both the European level and in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. A dedicated page presenting these key stakeholders and institutional contacts is currently under development and will be added to this section shortly.

ERC research team

The 'Rethinking Work' project is led by a team of four researchers. Elise Dermine is a Professor of Labour Law at ULB, Agathe Osinski is a postdoctoral researcher trained at the London School of Economics and UCLouvain, and finally, Juliette Van Ypersele and Valérie Coolen are PhD candidates at the Centre for Public and Social Law at ULB


Elise Dermine Elise Dermine - Principal Investigator

Élise is professor of labour law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Université libre de Bruxelles since October 2016. Her research is structured around three main topics: (1) the links between law and inequality in the workplace, (2) the relationship between labour law and ecological transition, and (3) access to law and justice for vulnerable people. She conducts these activities within the Centre for Public and Social Law and TRANSFO, an interdisciplinary research centre on social change.

She founded the Street Law Clinic en droit social, a legal clinic in which law students learn to communicate the law in clear language to vulnerable audiences, so that they understand their rights and can claim them.
Since September 2023, she is also president of the Belgian association for labour and social security law (ABETRASS/Begasoz).
Finally, since February 2024, she is vice-chair of the Commission responsible for studying the feasibility of codifying Belgian labour law, which was set up by the Minister of Employment within the Federal Public Service of Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue.
Email address: elise.dermine@ulb.be
 

Agathe Osinski - Postdoc

Agathe Osinski Agathe is a postdoctoral researcher passionate about research that drives social and ecological change. Trained in qualitative and participatory methodologies, she contributes to the project with her experience in conducting empirical research in diverse settings and with a wide range of societal actors, including people experiencing poverty. Her academic work pays particular attention to the recognition of different forms of knowledge, the ethics of knowledge production, and the critical examination of prevailing narratives on poverty.

Agathe holds a master’s degree in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics and a master’s degree in economics from the Université Catholique de Louvain, where she also completed her PhD in 2021. She previously worked with the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Professor Olivier De Schutter, and has held postdoctoral research positions at the University of Oxford and the University of Paris Nanterre.
Email adress: agathe.osinski@ulb.be
 

Juliette Van Ypersele - PhD

Juliette Van Ypersele Juliette is currently a doctoral researcher (F.R.S.–FNRS Research Fellow) at the Centre for Public and Social Law. Under the supervision of Elise Dermine, she is writing a thesis entitled The role of social law in the ecological transition: resources, limits, and potentialities. Her thesis focuses on Objectives 1 and 3 of the ERC project: mapping the legal resources already present in national labour law systems that support non-productivist time-spaces; and developing concrete legal arguments and future policy trajectories to expand these time-spaces and support a redefinition of work that breaks away from productivism.

Juliette obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Law (2021) and a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy (2021) from Saint-Louis University, Brussels. She then completed a Certificate in Economic and Social Ethics (2022) as well as a Master’s degree in Law with a specialisation in Economic and Social Law at the Université libre de Bruxelles (2023). She won an HERA Award in 2023 for her master’s thesis in which she demonstrated that the Belgian unemployment insurance already contains mechanisms that support the development of activities that have no or little economic value but are deemed to have a socio-ecological value, and that could be expanded to progressively emancipate this branch of social security from the growth imperative.
Email address : juliette.van.ypersele@ulb.be
 

Valérie Coolen Valérie Coolen - PhD

Valérie is currently a doctoral researcher at the Centre for Public and Social Law. Under the supervision of Elise Dermine, she is writing a thesis entitled Post-Productivism in Practice: Individual’s strategic uses of national systems of labour law to escape economic productivity norms. Her thesis focuses on the second Objective of the ERC project: investigate how individuals (workers and unemployed people) develop strategic, sometimes even illegal uses of labour law to secure non-productivist time-spaces beyond law.

Valérie obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Economics (2020) at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. She then completed a Master’s degree in Economics with a specialisation in Economic Analysis & European Policy (2022). She worked as political advisor for Belgian’s federal Minister of Climate, Environment, Sustainable Development and Green Deal (2022-2025).
Email address: valerie.coolen@ulb.be

Advisory Expert Committee

The research team is supported by an Expert advisory committee, providing feedback and advice on the team's progress at annual meetings. Members have been chosen for their complementary expertise: Anja Eleveld, professor of social law and skilled in empirical legal research (VU University), Tom Bauler, environmental economist at ULB and specialist in the participatory elaboration of foresight scenarios, Kalina Arabadjieva, senior researcher at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), specialist in ecological issues in LL, Tim Goedemé, social policy researcher, specialist in cross-country comparative analysis (Antwerp University & BE Federal Institute for Human Rights), Jayeon Lee, social policy researcher, specialist in the Sustainable Welfare State and Eco-Social Policies (University of Gothenburg) and Daniel Dumont, professor of social security law at the ULB with a background in Philosophy.


Anja Eleveld Anja Eleveld

Anja Eleveld is professor social-legal studies in precarious work and poverty at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Anja has conducted social-legal research on the protection of social assistance recipients, the unionization of migrant domestic workers and the working conditions of platform workers. In her most recent research, she investigates how adjudication mediates the reproduction or transformation of punitive welfare governance.
 

Tom Bauler

Soon…
 

Kalina Arabadjieva Kalina Arabadjieva

Kalina Arabadjieva is a senior researcher in the Economic, Employment and Social Policies Unit of the European Trade Union Institute. Her work sits at the intersection of EU labour law, climate policy, and equality law. She currently focuses on the social dimension of EU climate action and industrial policy, the role of labour law in driving a just transition, and the interplay between labour and environmental regulation. She also writes on gender equality at work, in particular work-life balance, equal pay, and the gendered impacts of the green transition.
 

Tim Goedemé Tim Goedemé

Tim Goedemé is head of research at the Centre of Expertise on Reference Budgets and Financial Well-Being at the Thomas More University of Applied Sciences, Belgium. He is also associate member at the Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp, and at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford. His main research interests include poverty and social policy, as well as the interactions between inequality and climate change. He has published internationally on topics including the measurement of poverty, the non-take-up of social rights, the adequacy of tax-benefit policies, and socio-economic inequalities in greenhouse gas emissions.
 

Jayeon Lee Jayeon Lee

Jayeon Lee is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She holds a PhD in Social Work. Her research focuses on labour market policy and transformations of the welfare state in the context of climate change and ecological crises. She is particularly interested in how work, employment, and social security systems can be rethought and aligned with post-growth economies.
 

Daniel Dumont

Soon…
Updated on September 3, 2026