Host Institutions
Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa, SSSA) is one of the seven Italian special-statute public universities. It is structured in 7 Institutes and Research Centres: DIRPOLIS – Law, Politics and Development; Economics; Management; Center of Plant Sciences, and CROP Science Research Centre; Communication, Information and Perception Technologies; BioRobotics, Mechanics Intelligence, and an Interdisciplinary centre in Health Science. It employs 164 professors and 229 fellows, and it is home for 325 honour undergraduate students and 335 PhD researchers, 25% of which are foreigners. As a research-intensive institution, it is present on SCOPUS with more than 11.500 publications, which have been cited 57.428 times in the period 2016-2021 and a weighted impact (FWCI) of 1.62. In the WoS database, SSSA has a portfolio of more than 7,700 scientific products with an H-index of 137 and an average of 18.27 citations per publication. Its researchers own 26 patent families and founded 72 spin-off companies, also in the field of Social Sciences and the Humanities. In 2022, the World University Ranking ranked SSSA as 1st at the national level, and 14th at the world level of best young universities (under 50 years old).
The Institute of Law, Politics and Development
The Institute of Law, Politics and Development conducts innovative research directed to offer a comprehensive, multi-faceted and evidence-based analysis of key legal, social, economic and political phenomena, and to provide scientifically sound and action-oriented bases to decision-making processes. DIRPOLIS offers graduate and post-graduate courses and professional training events (in Italian and English) built upon theoretical and applied research, offers consultancy services for a wide range of international, national and regional entities, and engages in international and national research projects in its main areas of expertise. The Institute’s research activities are conducted within the framework of three laboratories, including LIDER-Lab (International and Comparative Law Research Laboratory, which since 2003 has built a strong reputation in theoretical and empirical legal research, training, and consulting. The Lab has a consolidated expertise in the field of law and technologies, with a major focus on intellectual property, media law, data law, AI, cybersecurity, fundamental rights protection, and health law, and has a long tradition in comparative law studies, interdisciplinary analysis – with a particular emphasis on law and economics and law and sociology -, applied research and policy works. Despite its small full-time faculty (1 full professor, 2 associate professors and 1 assistant professor), LIDER-Lab has witnessed substantial growth in the past five years, with the hiring of 20+ PhD students and research fellows and the award of a remarkable number of EU, national and private grants in the field of personal/nonpersonal data and IP (inter alia the H2020 reCreating Europe, LEADS, Valkyries, SoBigData++, the HE Reboot and OpenMUSE, the RI SoBigData PPP, and many others). LIDER-Lab also provides consultancy services, mostly to public entities (e.g. EU institutions, CoE, and the Italian government). Through these activities, in the past decade, its research output had a substantial impact on national and EU policymaking. More information can be found here.
The Institute of Economics
The Institute of Economics carries out research and training activities in the field of empirical and theoretical economics with a special focus on the economics of innovation and technical change. The main lines of research include: (i) the economics of innovation studying how innovations are generated and their impact at the micro, meso and macro levels; (ii) the connection between intellectual property rights and inventive and creative activities; (iii) micro and macro agent-based models, with particular attention to the patterns of economic change driven by the introduction and diffusion of new technologies; (iv) economic history with a special focus on long run growth and major economic discontinuities. The Institute of Economics welcomes and favours dialogue between empirical investigations, theoretical developments and normative contributions – concerning both corporate management and public policies – offering an interdisciplinary environment in which different research interests and competencies, ranging from Economics and Economic History, to Information Sciences and Management meet and can be fruitfully integrated. Despite its small size, the Institute has achieved important results in terms of research output, that place it at the second place within the Economics Departments in Italy according to the last report on research published by the Italian Agency for Research Evaluation (ANVUR), and in the top 5% among European economic institutions (cf. the RePEc rankings). In 2018 and 2022 the Institute was also awarded the prestigious grant of “Department of Excellence” in the area of Economics by the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific Research. More information can be found here.
The Institute of Management
The Institute of Management is active in the field of management in the context of private and public organizations as support to a renewed entrepreneurship, in a synergetic perspective, among business, institutions and research. The Institute is the result of a long-term cultural project with particular reference to the management of innovation, sustainability and health. At present it includes around 140 people: 12 full and associate professors, 11 assistant professors, 48 fellow researchers, 30 research assistants, 28 PhD students and 10 technicians and administrative staff members. More information can be found here.
in collaboration with
The University of Pisa Department of Law’s history dates back to 1343, when it was born in conjunction with the Pisan “Studium Generale” on the foundations of a solid tradition of legal studies, to the point of becoming one of the most prestigious Italian and European Faculties of Law, with periods of genuine splendor. The Department of Law places at the center of its action the primary interest of students and those who benefit at all levels from university education. It represents the natural pole of reference for research and training in the field of legal disciplines, without ever having abandoned the necessary interdisciplinary dimension of this scientific field and, in particular, its close connection with economic teachings, which have always been represented in the Department. In particular, the faculty of the Department includes 88 afferents (including full professors, associates and researchers) and about 3,843 students. The Department’s teaching offerings include, in addition to the master’s degree program in Law, a bachelor’s degree program in Business, Labor and Public Administration Law from A.Y. 2010/11. In addition, since A.Y. 2019/2020, a master’s degree course in Innovation Law for Business and Institutions has been active: in relation to the deep transformations in the world of work, brought about by advanced technologies and the internationalization of production and regulatory processes, this course aims to train a jurist with different traits than the traditional model. In addition, a master’s degree course in Law (Naval Academy) has been established: this is a five-year, single-cycle degree course having the main purpose of training the professional figure of the Commissioned Officer of the Italian Navy, at which the Department participates in the degree course in Science of the Government and Administration of the Sea. The Department’s educational offerings are completed with interdepartmental courses, in Sciences for Peace as well as in Economics and Legislation of Logistics Systems and Management and Control of Logistics Processes at the Logistics Pole in Livorno. Finally, for graduate students, the Department offers important postgraduate educational paths: the Ph.D. articulated in four curricula (Private Law, Labor Law, Comparative Private Law, European Legal Tradition; Fundamental Rights Theory, Constitutional Justice, Legal Comparison; Business, International and European Law, Process; Administration, Market and Criminal Justice); three Level I Master’s degrees (in Business Lawyer and Public Manager; in Digital Administration Management; in Family and Juvenile Law and Process); a Level II Master’s degree (in Internet Ecosystem: Governance and Rights); and the School of Specialization for the Legal Professions. In order to accentuate the existing link between academic training and training in the working context, a policy of incentive and mentoring towards working students (evening courses) and the organization of practical training internship activities are envisaged: these activities are carried out within public and private bodies and is organizations, with which the Department maintains relations on the basis of precise agreements. Finally, in addition to the Erasmus Agreements, the Department has long promoted broader cooperation in the field of education and research, establishing relationships of various kinds with many European and non-European universities.