The Luxembourg Centre for European Law (LCEL) of the University of Luxembourg is pleased to welcome Professor Joana Mendes as she joins the Centre after nearly a decade at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance. Her appointment represents an important advancement in positioning the LCEL as a research hub focused on European Union law and highlights the continued collaboration between the Centre and the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance.
Academic leadership and institutional experience
Professor Mendes has been a member of the University since 2016. During this time, she has contributed extensively to the academic and institutional life of the Faculty. She coordinated the DTU-REMS-II doctoral training unit from 2018 and served as Head of the Doctoral School in Law from 2020. In both roles, she was instrumental in shaping the University’s doctoral research environment, fostering academic standards and supporting early-career researchers in an international setting.
Her transition to the LCEL will allow her to continue this work in a more focused institutional framework. The Centre offers a platform dedicated exclusively to European Union law, designed to foster high-quality, interdisciplinary research at a time when such approaches are indispensable to understanding the development of EU integration.
‟ Interdisciplinarity has always been important, but today it is unavoidable to make sense of EU law.”
Professor Mendes’s research at the LCEL
As part of her research agenda at the Centre, Professor Mendes is pursuing two major projects. The first examines the liberal democratic ideal that public law can keep the exercise of public power within reviewable bounds and that administrative powers are necessarily subordinated to the law. It is a project she is concluding and that has particular implications to the role exercised by the Court of Justice of the European Union.
The second, developed in collaboration with Professor Afroditi Marketou (Université Paris-Est Créteil), addresses the local interpretation of EU legal norms across Member States. Titled “Local Meanings of EU Law”, the project investigates the cultural and historical diversity that shapes legal understanding across jurisdictions and explores the implications of this diversity for the character of EU law.
These projects differ in scope but are united by a shared objective: to critically examine foundational ideas about the role of law in the European Union, both in relation to the exercise of power and the integration process more broadly.
‟ The Centre is neither limited as an issue-based programme, nor broad like a faculty department. Its focus on EU law, from an interdisciplinary perspective, allows for targeted development.”
Strengthening Luxembourg’s research environment
Professor Mendes has also observed, over the past decade, the steady evolution of Luxembourg’s academic landscape. The country has become increasingly attractive to early-career researchers, offering excellent conditions for doctoral education and a supportive environment for research activities. She is confident that the LCEL will benefit from, and contribute to, this dynamic.
In her new role, Professor Mendes looks forward to collaborating with LCEL Director Professor Takis Tridimas and to contributing to the establishment of a research community characterised by academic excellence, inclusivity, and interdisciplinary engagement. She notes that the creation of the Centre coincides with a particularly challenging period for the European Union and considers it a privilege to contribute to this endeavour.