The Center’s research focuses on the following academic fields: legal informatics, digital law, and comparative law of innovation and new technologies, which fall under the academic fields of philosophy of law and comparative law (SSD 12/GIUR-17/A and 12/GIUR-11/A). Its objectives are as follows:

a) to examine issues in the comparative law of information technology, communications, and new technologies; legal informatics; the ethics of new technologies; data and algorithm governance; artificial intelligence; robotics; cybersecurity; biotechnology; and emerging technologies such as distributed ledger technologies, blockchain, the metaverse, etc.;

b) to explore the relationship between law and new technologies, the regulation of the digital society, and, specifically, the legal, philosophical, ethical, and social aspects of technological innovation, digital transformation, and artificial intelligence, through the study of the impact of information technologies on various aspects related to society, the individual and their rights, and the institutions and tools of the legal profession;

c) promote scientific research through projects, including participation in competitive international, European, and national calls for proposals on the research topics;

d) foster training and education by organizing teaching, advanced, and continuing education courses, summer schools, and any other appropriate activities on the research topics;

e) stimulate scientific and third-mission activities through the organization of conferences, congresses, conventions, meetings, seminars, and any other event deemed appropriate on the research topics;

f) support, encourage, and strengthen Italian and supranational legal culture on the topics covered by the Center.

The Center aims to achieve the outlined objectives through the promotion, design, organization, and establishment of:

1. research projects to be submitted in response to competitive international, European, and national calls for proposals on the research topics;

2. teaching and courses, training, advanced and continuing education programs, summer schools, and any other educational initiatives deemed appropriate on the research topics;

3. conferences, congresses, conventions, meetings, seminars, roundtables, and any other event or meeting deemed appropriate on the research topics;

4. publications in scientific journals, as well as the publication of volumes and books, aimed at disseminating the results of studies conducted within the Research Center;

5. the study, design, development, and promotion of applications of legal informatics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning as expert systems in the legal field through the analysis of data usable for this purpose;

6. institutional initiatives, working groups, and meetings aimed at creating collaborations and synergies with public and private entities on the research topics;

7. best practices and cutting-edge regulatory solutions tailored to the national, European, and supranational contexts from a comparative perspective, in collaboration with public and private regulators, institutions, and businesses;

8. the preparation of position papers and public presentations of the activities carried out;

9. scholarships, research grants, and awards for scholars who have distinguished themselves in the topics covered by the Research Center.