About

Católica Research Centre for the Future of Law is a research unit of generalist scope at Católica Law School. It was founded in November 2012.

Its mission is to promote key changes to the traditional paradigm of legal research in Portugal. The Research Centre aims to set Católica apart from other Portuguese law schools in its way of thinking about and carrying out legal research. We are committed to a paradigm that stresses teamwork, interdisciplinary research, and a transnational focus.

Instead of individual and isolated research, the Centre supports research projects that imply the cooperation of researchers with different areas of interest and expertise integrated in a single research network. We also support interdisciplinary research grounded in the interface between law and other subjects that widen jurists’ critical and creative benchmarks. Transnational research, the third mainstay of the new research paradigm, expands the scope of academic dialogue, freeing researchers from the burden of writing for a very small audience and subjecting their work to the broad and demanding scrutiny of their peers within the framework of a truly global academic dialogue.

In addition to academic research, whether of the pure or the applied type, Católica Law School is conscious of the fundamentally practical dimension of law, and accordingly purports to build a springboard to carry out legal consultation through the Research Centre.

It is an expression of the inclusive vocation of the Research Centre that it houses not only the faculty and doctoral candidates at the Lisbon and Oporto branches of Católica Law School and Católica Global School of Law, but also law professors and researchers with an outstanding record willing to join research teams or produce research in accordance with the spirit that pervades the Centre. Católica Research Centre for the Future of Law is hence a common home for legal academics committed to innovative and prospective research.

A long path lies ahead. In any case, just as Católica Law School took advantage of the Bologna Process to break new ground and perform a profound curricular reform, the Research Centre aims to play a leading role in the renewal of legal research in Portugal.