Team

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 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 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 - 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