Dr. Katerina Kalaitzaki was appointed as a Lecturer in EU Business Law at UCLan Cyprus in September 2021. Katerina joined ICLAIM in 2018 as a Research Scholar and now as a Resident Expert, she contributes on issues of Fundamental Rights and Law in Society. Katerina is also an accredited mediator in the UK since April 2019, a non-practising lawyer (Cyprus Bar Association) since September 2015, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She was awarded her PhD for her thesis “EU citizenship as a means of reinforcement of EU fundamental rights: challenges, developments, limits” in June 2019, after submitting it in December 2018. The research, using the case study of the financial crisis, proposes that a constructivist approach to EU citizenship can constitute the key element in reinforcing the current fundamental rights protection system, through a structural link with EU fundamental, based on a newly developed doctrine of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
Katerina’s research interests lie in the area of EU citizenship and EU fundamental principles and values. Current projects deal with the development and/or potential use of these concepts, including the rule of law principle, during periods of crises such as Brexit, Covid-19 and the rule of law crisis. Katerina is currently a researcher for EU (co-)funded projects including a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence entitled, ‘Centre for the Rule of Law and European Values’ (CRoLEV) Erasmus+ (2022-2025) and a CERV project entitled, ‘Preventing Racism and Discrimination – Enabling the Effective Implementation of the EU Anti-Racist Legal Framework’ (2022-2024).
Within PREPARED, Katerina undertakes various research tasks primarily focusing on the development of the relevant legal and socio-legal framework within which other research tasks are realised.