Prof Yves Jorens

Yves Jorens is Full Professor of (European) social law and social criminal law at Ghent University. He has an extensive track record in managing large-scale European projects dealing with European social security and labour issues of migrant persons and issues related to social dumping and social fraud. His main domains of research are the coordination of social security for migrant workers, posting, cross-border employment, social dumping, combatting social fraud and social dumping and the employment situation in the aviation sector.

Professor Jorens is currently also director of IRIS│international research institute on social fraud, a knowledge centre that gathers relevant information of regional, national, and international interest regarding social fraud in the broadest sense of the word. IRIS constitutes a unique corporation platform between the academic world on the one hand and the different actors involved in the fight against social fraud on the other hand. Professor Jorens is co-founder and director of LIISA|Lab for International & Interdisciplinary Social Affairs at Ghent University and Honorary Professor at the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham.

Prof Alexander De Becker

Alexander De Becker is Professor and Doctor of Laws and obtained his PhD titled ‘Legal foundations of the legal status of public servants’ in 2006. He teaches among other courses ‘Labour Law’, ‘Social Consultation’, ‘The State as Employer’ at the Faculty of Law and Criminology and ‘Labour Law in Health Organisations’ at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of Ghent University. His main research field covers the rights of public service employees in a strong comparative law and international context, but he also has a large expertise in administrative law and labour law in general.

He is co-founder and director of the research centre Lab for International and Interdisciplinary Social Affairs (LIISA) at Ghent University. Furthermore, for seven years, he was Professor holding the Chair ‘The State as Employer’ at the Universities of Amsterdam and Leiden in the Netherlands. Moreover, he conducted research as a visiting scholar at different universities such as Oxford University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the European University Institute in Florence.

Prof Glenn Rayp

Glenn Rayp is Professor of International Economics at Ghent University and professorial research fellow of UNU-CRIS. His current research is centred on the impact of international trade on labour market conditions and productivity, the impact of regional integration and issues in international governance, in particular the substance of regional governance and its impact on the achievement of the SDGs. He is a former member of the Belgian High Council of Finance and High Council on Employment. He published amongst other in World Development, Oxford Economic Papers, Labour Economics, the Journal of Consumer Analysis, the Journal of Productivity Analysis, and the Journal of Business History.

Prof Katia Levecque

Katia Levecque is Professor of Employment Relations and Social Dialogue (Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University) and a certified Mediator in Social Affairs. She has international expertise in employment and work-related well-being and mental health. Of special interest are precarious employment, psychosocial working conditions, sustainable jobs, negotiation and mediation.

She is also Director of ECOOM UGent, the Centre of Expertise that monitors human capital in R&D&I for the Flemish Government. A passion for making people thrive and flourish keeps her going. As do good coffee and daily meditation… And oh, did we mention that she is a certified chocolatier too?