Marie-Cécile Escande-Varniol

Marie-Cécile ESCANDE-VARNIOL is Professor Emeritus at the University of Lyon. She is a member of research center CERCRID. She has been Vice-director of the Labour Law Instititute of Lyon (2018-2022). Author of numerous articles and books chapters, particularly in the field of international and European social law. She has participated in various research projects in this field, funded by the European Commission or other international bodies. She is a member of several research networks: LLRN, INLACRIS, COGENS, DIGILARE, GEFACT, and the Panama Group (social dialogue, tripartism and conflict resolution). For more than ten years, her research focuses on digital platforms workers. She has participated in numerous national and international studies on this topic.

Michał Gondek

Michał Gondek is a legal officer at the European Commission, where he works in the labour law unit at the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. He holds a PhD degree in public international law and human rights from Maastricht University.

Erika Kovács 

Erika Kovács is an Associate Professor of European and Austrian labour law and social security at the Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria.

She studied law at the Universities of Pécs (Hungary) and Trier (Germany). She then worked as a research associate at the Institute of Labour Law and Industrial Relations (IAAEU) at the University of Trier, where she completed her PhD in 2008 on the relationship between freedom of association and the right to conclude collective agreements.

Following a period as a visiting scholar at the Institute of European and Comparative Law at the University of Oxford, she joined the University of Pécs, where she played a key role in establishing the newly founded Institute for Comparative Labour Law. Since 2012, she has been affiliated with the Vienna University of Economics and Business, where she researches and teaches European and Austrian labour and social security law.Erika is also an international consultant to the Council of Europe (2024–2027) and a fellow of the European Whistleblowing Institute.

Viktor Križan

Viktor Križan is Associate Professor of Labour Law and Social Security Law and Vice-Dean for Science, Research and Legislation at the Faculty of Law, Trnava University in Slovakia. His research focuses on employment law, social security, and the legal dimensions of digital transformation. He has authored and co-authored several monographs and legal commentaries, including two comprehensive commentaries on the Slovak Labour Code. He has actively participated in academic research projects and international legal conferences across Europe. Since 2016, he has also served as a mediator and arbitrator in collective labour disputes appointed by the Slovak Ministry of Labour. In addition, he is committed to supporting legal education and mentoring future labour law experts.

Daniela Krömer

Daniela Krömer is Co-Head of the CMS Employment, Labour & Pensions Group, CMS. She is the lawyer specializing in employment law and European law. She joined the employment law team at CMS in 2013 and became Co-Head of the CMS Employment & Pensions Group in 2023. In this position, she leads an international team of 280 lawyers. 
In addition to traditional employment law advice, she also supports clients with a focus on European employment law issues, for example in the area of cross-border labor deployment, in particular in the area of wage and social dumping and equal treatment issues.

Jozef Kšiňan

Jozef Kšiňan is Head of Governance and Outreach Sector at the European Labour Authority. Before joining the Authority, he worked as a political adviser to the Chair of Employment and Social Affairs Committee in the European Parliament (2021), Employment and Social Attaché, Permanent Representation of the Slovak Republic to the European Union (2015-2021) and adviser at the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family of the Slovak Republic (2012-2015). He lectured at Department of Labour Law at the Faculty of Law, Comenius University Bratislava (2015-2018).

Sylvaine Laulom

Sylvaine Laulom is since March 2019 Advocate General in extraordinary service at the Court of Cassation (social chamber). She was previously Professor of Private Law at the University Lumière Lyon 2 where she directed, from 2013 to 2018, the Institute of Labour Studies of Lyon. She is specialised in European and international social law and comparative labour law and has published several books and articles on these topics, including on the issue of discrimination. She has directed several European research projects (Collective Bargaining Developments in times of crisis, Kluwers, Bulletin of Comparative Labour Relations, n°99, 2d ed. 2025; Which Securities for workers in times of crisis?, European Labour Law Journal n°3-4, special issue, 2014).

Emanuele Menegatti

Emanuele Menegatti is a Full Professor of Labour Law and Jean Monnet Chair in European Social Policy. His main areas of expertise are comparative labour law and European Union labour law. He is also a member of the Doctoral College in European Union Law at the University of Bologna. He has been a visiting professor at several foreign universities, including the Hastings College of the Law at the University of California (San Francisco), the College of Law at the University of Illinois (USA), and the Sydney University Law School. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Italian Labour Law e-Journal.

Nicolas Moizard

Nicolas Moizard is full professor at the Institut du travail (University of Strasbourg, France), a national institution specialising in trade union training. He is director of the House of Social and Human Sciences of Alsace (MISHA). He is specialised in French and European employment law.

Vincenzo Pietrogiovanni

Vincenzo Pietrogiovanni is Associate Professor in Labour Law at the Department of Law of Southern Denmark University -SDU (Denmark). He is also affiliated at the Business Law Department of Lund University (Sweden) and Professeur Invité at University of Paris Nanterre (France). He obtained a PhD in Labour Law at University of Bari, where he had previously graduated in Law. He is the co-founder of the Moving Labour Collective-MLC as well as the Nordic Network of Labour Law Scholars-NNLLS.

Lejo Sibbel

Lejo Sibbel has been the Sr. Specialist on Social Dialogue, Labour Law and International Labour Standards in the Budapest Office of the International Labour Organization (ILO) since May 2023. In this function his main responsibility is to promote the improved conformity of national legislative frameworks, and the practical application thereof, with the international labour standards of the ILO. He is a human rights expert specialized in the field of labour rights, with thirty years international experience, of which 25 years with the United Nations/ILO. He has lived and worked in different countries in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Elena Sychenko

Elena Sychenko is an associate professor at Saint Petersburg State University, Fulbright scholar at Wharton Business School (2024), holder of EU Jean Monnet Module (2019-2022), ILO external consultant in projects in Pakistan and El Salvador. She has over 15 years of academic and research experience focused on human rights at work, international labour standards, and corporate social responsibility. Elena has authored numerous publications on the protection of workers’ rights by the ECtHR (two books published by Wolters Kluwer) and annual reviews of the UN Human rights committees’ jurisprudence on individual and collective labour rights during the last 10 years for the Revue de droit comparé du travail et de la sécurité social.

Matthieu Vicente

Matthieu Vicente is a lecturer in labour law at the University of Montpellier-Paul Valéry. In 2022, he defended a doctoral thesis on the collective rights of platform workers at the University of Strasbourg. His research focuses on trade union freedom and the status of precarious workers, with a comparative perspective and a focus on international and European law.

Bernd Waas

Bernd Waas is Professor of Labour Law and Civil Law at Goethe University Frankfurt. Coordinator of the European Commission’s network of labour law experts (ELLN); Member of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (CEACR) of the International Labour Organization; Chairman of the German Section of the International Society for the Law of Labour and Social Security.