The 3rd International Conference in Commemoration of Roger Blanpain will be organised at the Law Faculty of KU Leuven (Belgium) on 5-6 September 2023.
The theme of the conference is “The meaning of work”.

Introduction
This initiative is the 3rd conference in commemoration of the late emeritus Professor Roger Blanpain (1932 - 2016), bringing together international scholars. We wish to examine evolutions, ideas and new challenges with a major impact on the way how we understand and approach labour law. In this conference, we are looking to deal with ‘The meaning of work’. The world of working is undergoing rapid change, due to main challenges, including globalisation, demographic evolution, technology, the climate, Industry 4.0 (and even 5.0), periods of crisis, in such a way that it is time to ask ourselves a number of basic questions: how do we approach work, what exactly is work, the object of study in labour law? And how are work, the workplace or the ‘worker’ developing and to be seen in (and beyond) legal terms? We hope to consider discussions related to dependent work, precarious, invisible or fragmented work, autonomous work, telework, working with smart technology and artificial intelligence, working time versus non-working time, work-life-balance, the place of work, the relationship between work and private life, or generally our idea or understanding of work. We wonder whether and how the right to privacy creates ‘new’ rights in labour law. In short, now that traditional approaches of the workplace, and the traditional view of working time, or subordinated work, are challenged, the questioning becomes directed to work itself: what is work, and what is the meaning of work? During this conference we are looking for a better insight into problems and challenges and, where possible, we explore new pathways and answers.

You are welcome to register by sending an e-mail to iar@kuleuven.be.

We offer the possibility for a total of 8 early career scholars to present a poster in the evening of the 5th of September at 19h00, during the drink before the conference dinner. The poster presenters will of course also participate at the conference and the dinner.
The poster must fit within the broad conference theme. If you wish to present a poster (size A3), please send an application for this with your short bio, a title and a short abstract of max. 300 words, by e-mail to iar@kuleuven.be . There is no strict deadline, so we will deal with the poster applications when they come in. Early career scholars are researchers affiliated with a university and who are either pursuing a phd-degree, or having no more than 5 years of post-doctoral seniority.

The conference will by available for physical attendance only.

You are only registered after confirmation. Please note that there are limited places. Please note that attending the conference is free of charge, and this includes the refreshments during breaks and the dinner. However, please note, if you do not attend the conference and/or dinner after you have been registered, you will be charged a participation fee of 150 Euro.

With best wishes
On behalf of the Institute for Labour Law,
Prof. Dr. Frank Hendrickx

KU Leuven | Institute for Labour Law