HVA honours Dr Valerie Kühn’s doctoral thesis with the 2026 Thesis Award

In her doctoral thesis, Dr Valerie Kühn examines the question of the conditions under which working from home can be organised on a voluntary basis and where the legal limits of this voluntary arrangement lie. In doing so, she compares the regulations and developments in Germany and France and makes a well-founded contribution to a debate on employment law that is becoming increasingly important in light of changing forms of work.

The HVA jury commended the academic quality and the particular relevance of the work to research and practice. The study was published in 2026 under the title The voluntary nature of working from home and its limitations. A comparative legal analysis of German and French law in the series ‘Publications of the Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law‘.

The award ceremony took place as part of an event dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG). The keynote address was delivered by Prof. Dr Sebastian Roloff, a judge at the Federal Labour Court and a professor at the University of Leipzig. In his review of two decades of the AGG, he examined the development of the Act and its significance for the discourse on labour law.

A work that enriches the discourse on employment law

Nomos warmly congratulates Dr Valerie Kühn on this prestigious award. The prize highlights the high academic standard of the work recognised and the importance of comparative legal research for the further development of employment law.