New associate professors at the Faculty of Law
Recently, the three newly appointed associate professors Marios Iacovides, Laima Vaige and Olof Wilske gave lectures to colleagues at the department, where they talked about their ongoing research.
Marios Iacovides' research area and interests are European law and international trade law, in particular issues related to the economic constitution of the EU and the interplay between free movement and competition policy on the one hand and non-economic values, such as sustainability, human rights, social justice, and environmental protection on the other. He obtained his PhD in European law in Uppsala in 2016 with a thesis comparing EU competition law with World Trade Organisation law.
In recent years, Marios has published widely in the fields of EU law, competition law and international trade, on e.g. the objectives of competition law, competition law and sustainability, EU commercial law and biodiversity, fintech, green investment and competition law, the status of unrecognised states in international economic law, data protection and the right to be forgotten, digital markets and competition law, and private damages in competition law cases. His current research project focuses on the Union's Green Deal and its relation to growth, and asks how competition law and state aid rules would be interpreted and applied if the EU economy were to stop growing. The project is funded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for three years and will result in a monograph on the subject.
Marios Iacovides. Photo: Private
Olof Wilske defended his thesis on the judicial profession in 2009, in which he analysed the Swedish judiciary using a combination of legal dogmatics and theory, discourse analysis, and interviews. He then worked at the Swedish Parliamentary Research Service and the Swedish Agency of Public Management before returning to the university in 2019.
In recent years, Olof's research has focused on constitutional culture and normativity, for example, the impact of constitutional norms on the legal system in general and what characterizes Swedish constitutional culture, as well as the evolving relations between courts and the legislator. He is also involved in a research project in collaboration with the Swedish Defence University that deals with Swedish constitutional and administrative preparedness, for example the unclear division of responsibilities between different public actors. In an upcoming project, Olof intends to chart and analyse the log arc of Swedish constitutional history.
Olof Wilske. Photo: Lasse Blom
Laima Vaige's research focuses on private international law, with a particular emphasis on international family law. She defended her doctoral dissertation "Cross border recognition of formalized same-sex relationships" in 2021 at the Faculty of Law, Uppsala University. A revised version of it was published in 2022 (Cambridge: Intersentia). This was her second doctorate - she had previously defended a doctoral thesis at Mykolas Romeris University (Lithuania) on the prohibition of violence against women under international law.
Following her defense in Uppsala, Laima has continued to pursue research on gender and sexuality in private international law, particularly in its intersection with human rights and the recognition of civil status within Europe. She is involved in several projects at the European Law Institute, including "Enhancing Child Protection: Private International Law on Filiation and the EC’s Proposal COM/2022/695" and "Extra-Judicial Administration of Justice in Cross-Border Family and Succession Matters". Her current research interests also include the protection of weaker parties in private international law, as well as succession law in cross-border contexts.
In 2023, she was awarded the Benzelius Prize for her research by the Royal Swedish Society of Sciences in Uppsala.
Laima Vaige. Photo: Private
Facts
Associate Professor is an academic title that signifies a higher level of scientific competence than a doctorate alone. In Sweden, the title corresponds to approximately four years of full-time research after completing a doctoral degree, and the researcher has demonstrated through various publications and the like that they have considerably broadened and deepened their research in comparison with the doctoral thesis.
Associate Professor is not a profession, but at state universities you are admitted as an ‘unpaid associate professor’. The form of employment is usually a senior lecturer.