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Activity Funded

University of Coimbra Institute for Legal Research

Instituto Jurídico da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Coimbra

Reference
UID/04643/2025
Project Start Date
2025-01-01
Project End Date
2029-12-31
Principal Investigator
Funding Program
Avaliação UID 2023/2024

Abstract

As the only authentic research unit at the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra, UCILeR benefits from a reputed centuries-old tradition and a huge spectrum of knowledge and experience covering every arena of Law. Whilst remaining faithful to this legacy (and simultaneously exploring the unique potentialities of this research spectrum), the purpose of UCILeR’s strategic project planned for the 2025/2029 cycle is to concentrate these resources into five major clusters of societal challenges: (a) the multiform experience of vulnerability (involving individuals and groups), (b) the deficits of participation and/or inclusion (combining the explosion of different forms of living with the crises of democratic representation), (c) the tensions between will autonomy (as self-governance), sociability and globalisation, (d) the techno-scientific conformation of societas, (e) the climate changes and the environmental crises. The option for this concentration does not, however, correspond to a mere conventional internal exercise of simplification and distribution, it is rather based on an authentic diagnosis of problems and on the transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary dialogue that this requires. The dialogue with discourses, practices and scientific areas outside Law is actually not only relevant in order to identify the set of 5 major problems and their urgency in the contemporary societal context, it is also indispensable with regard to the process of constructing the expected juridical answers. These answers should not end up with the dogmatic reflection, however plural and influential (namely in judicial rulings) this may be. It is expected that those responses, whenever it is possible, manifest themselves in arguments of policy and in (de jure condendo or even de lege ferenda) “purpose-oriented programmes” (“Zweckprogramme”).This means actually considering hypothetical public policies and their alternatives, without forgetting here the prognosis (no less interdisciplinary researched) of the empirically social effects that distinguish (in terms of effectiveness or efficiency) those alternatives. Without stopping here. A still juridical (but now meta-dogmatic) approach, with the advantage of an integrative outcome, should finally treat this entire set (of problems and responses) as a plausible “test-bed” in order to discuss the autonomy and limits of (as well as the alternatives to) Law. This distribution justifies five research groups: (a) Vulnerabilities (Reinventing responsibility as solidarity); (b) Democracy (Reinventing the possibilities and limits of the Rule of Law); (c) Governances (Reinventing autonomy and sociability); (d) Techno Societies (Reinventing the congruence(s) between Law and Science); (e) Ecological Transitions (Reinventing the principle of Sustainability).

Institutions

Main Institutions

  • Instituto Jurídico da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Coimbra (IJ/UC)
  • Universidade de Coimbra (UC)

Funding 2.124.437,38 €

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - Portugal

2.124.437,38 €