Dr. Nieke Elbers is associate professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and senior researcher the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR). She is passionate about improving victims’ rights, such as access to compensation, restorative justice and victim impact statements, and enhancing procedural justice for citizens. She leads the Empirical Legal Studies help desk at the VU law school, is on the management team of the Amsterdam Law and Behaviour Institute (A-LAB), on the board of the WO&MEN@VU network and on advisory committees for victim research at the Ministry of Justice. She has coordinated and optimized several methodological and restorative justice courses. She was editor in chief of the book What works: effective support for victims, published in 2023. She co-leads an Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration titled "Victims, citizenship and justice" with Dr. Holder of Griffith University. She has been leading a work package of an EU-funded research, research projects commissioned by the Ministry of Justice, personal grants on victimization and law enforcement, and empirical research of a large-scale program on (restorative) alternatives to incarceration. Currently, she is leading a project on building a restorative university. She co-developed the NSCR victimization research program (2020). She volunteers as a neighbourhood mediator in Amsterdam.

Elbers' research interests are in the areas of Empirical Legal Studies (ELS), victimology, restorative justice, procedural justice, mediation and empowerment. She takes an interdisciplinary look at victim recovery after an accident or crime. Through (inter)national research and collaborations, she contributes to a better understanding of the influence of psychosocial factors on health and well-being. She opts for methodologically strong research designs, applying both qualitative and quantitative methods. In her research, she works closely with policy makers, legal experts and health care specialists.

Elbers defended her dissertation Emporwerment of personal injury claimants in 2013. In 2013-2016, she was a postdoc at the University of Sydney in Australia and published on the negative effect of legal proceedings on recovery. In 2016-2018, she advocated for more empirical legal research in the Netherlands. In 2019-2020, she raised awareness about ineffective and unfair compensation for victims of sexual violence in Europe. Between 2018-2023, she published research reports on victim advocacy, victim support, victim impact statements and restorative justice. Currently, she is committed to promote a restorative climate as a solution to social misconduct at universities and she is involved in an evaluation of the law on affectionate damages (affectieschade).

Elbers is affiliated with the VU Gender Research Network.

Elbers holds a University Teaching Qualification (BKO). She currently coordinates the following courses:

• Restorative justice - VU Law Master course 
• Scientific interviewing course - PhDs in Law 

She supervises four PhD students: Iris Becx, Rachel Dijkstra, Angelique Reitsma and Marleen Kragting.

• Nederlands Studiecentrum Criminaliteit en Rechtshandhaving | Amsterdam | Medewerker | 2016-04-01 - present
• BeterBuren | Amsterdam | Buurtbemiddelaar | 2018-11-01 - present

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