As of 1 January 2025, Karin van Wingerde has been reappointed as Professor of Corporate Crime and Governance at Erasmus School of Law. This chair within the Department of Law, Society & Crime, which she has held since 2021, provides the opportunity to further research the interdisciplinary field of (regulatory) governance and addresses the interplay between various public, private, and hybrid modes of governance and corporate, white-collar, and organized crime and harm.
Over the years, Van Wingerde’s research has contributed to the practice of regulatory governance and has impacted public policies. Van Wingerde is currently working on different research projects, amongst which she is leading the NWO-KIC-funded research project called Focusing On the Right Things in the Port of Rotterdam (FORT-PORT), for which the research team was awarded the 2023 EUR research prize. This interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder consortium focuses on the governance of cocaine trafficking and human smuggling in and around the Port of Rotterdam.
How can civil society be included in responses to corporate crime?
The ways in which societal institutions deal with corporate, white-collar and organized crimes and harms have fundamentally changed, driven by interconnected developments of globalization, digitalization, privatization and the rise of more complex social problems. Therefore, Van Wingerde will continue her research aimed at understanding how governments, businesses and civil society interact in responding to to corporate, white-collar and organized crimes and harms. She is specifically focused on understanding the drivers and dynamics of these phenomena, researching why and how governments, businesses, and civil society respond to these crimes and harms, and on understanding if and how various modes of governance can effectively tackle corporate, white-collar, and organized crimes and harms. “In the coming years, I want to study how the governance of business conduct can be designed in such a way that it reinforces rather than weakens the countervailing power that civil society groups may have. This is very much needed in a time where business, civil society and government interactions become increasingly polarised.” To that end, she works closely with public regulatory bodies, enforcement authorities, businesses, and civil society organizations.
The Board of Erasmus School of Law congratulates Karin van Wingerde on her reappointment and wishes her all the best with her activities.
- Professor
