PhD Candidate: Enforcement of EU Law by National Regulatory Authorities

We invite applications for a PhD position on the research project '

Enforcement of EU legislation by national regulatory authorities

'. This is a multidisciplinary project based on a cooperation between the Department of Public Administration at the Nijmegen School of Management and the Department of International and European Law at the Faculty of Law. You will be stationed at the Nijmegen School of Management but you will carry out your work in close cooperation with, and under the co-supervision of, professors from the Faculty of Law. 

The project focuses on the enforcement of EU legislation by national regulatory authorities. It attempts to formulate answers to the following subquestions:

• How does EU law influence the positioning, powers, tasks and duties of national regulatory authorities?
• What approaches are used in the reception, operationalisation and enforcement of existing and new EU law for and by national regulatory authorities?
• Do these approaches differ between the EU Member States? If so, how can such differences be explained?
• How do national regulatory authorities assess the quality, complexity and enforceability of European law?
• How do national regulatory authorities determine their strategies in the face of the risk that their actions may cause public, legal or political dissent?

In order to research these topics, you will use a variety of methods. In addition to a study on the legal framework, based in part on (EU) law, policy documents and case law, qualitative empirical data will have to be gathered through, for example, in-depth interviews, small-scale surveys, participant observation and focus groups. The project's substantive focus is on the domains of competition, transport and food safety. The regulatory authorities that take centre stage in the research are the Consumer and Market Authority (ACM) and the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA).

Your tasks will be to develop your own research project within the parameters of the project proposal, to set up and perform legal analysis and data collection, to conduct sound analyses, to write academic articles, and to complete your PhD thesis in time. You will participate in conferences, organise and facilitate academic and non-academic workshops and seminars, and contribute to teaching at the Nijmegen School of Management. In addition, you will fulfil administrative support activities for the multidisciplinary EUROPAL research group, for example, website maintenance and the organisation of research meetings.