Our PhD students Audrey Deverson and Catharina Lopes Scodro attended the École d’été interdisciplinaire MAKErS “Méthodes de recherche et données sur l’Europe – Enjeux et usages” (Research methods and data on Europe – Issues and uses) between 1st and 4 July 2025. The Summer School brought together PhD candidates from various social sciences (Law, Political Sciences, Economics) to stimulate interdisciplinary research approaches in European studies. To do so, it covered historical aspects of EU Law and explored a range of data sources, such as EURLex, parliamentary questions, and archives. The programme included practical workshops to teach textual analysis using IRaMuteQ and a technical visit to the archives sector of the Council of Europe.
Both our PhD students presented part of their research, focusing on their methodological challenges. Audrey presented a paper on “Défis méthodologiques d’une recherche juridique sur les travailleuses migrantes en France et en Espagne” (Methodological challenges of legal research on women migrant workers in France and Spain), while Catharina’s paper was titled “Travailleuses invisibles ? Les défis d’une ênquete sociojuridique comparée sur les jeunes au pair” (Invisible workers? The challenges of a comparative socio-legal study of au pairs).
During the first day of the Summer School, our PI Marco Rocca also delivered a workshop titled “Un exemple d’analyse empirique du droit : constitution et exploitation d’une base de données à partir de Eur-Lex” (An example of empirical analysis of the law: building and using a database based on Eur-Lex), which saw the participants engage in interesting discussions over the use of empirical legal approaches to carry out interdisciplinary research both as a single researcher and in the context of a team.
