RESEARCH GROUP GOVERNANCE, ECONOMY AND SOCIETY
3.1 Human rights, markets and governance challenges
Within this Thematic Line, we envisage to investigate to what extent, and in what ways EU law and case-law of the European Court of Justice, as well as the doctrine and practice of the novel European Agency for Fundamental Rights, are furthering the role of human rights as standards of reference for framing or judging market entities’ practices.
4 main research topics are:
i) The Charter of Fundamental Rights, a reference guide for the European Internal Market?;
ii) The justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights in the light, in particular, of public policies designed to address the deficit/debt problem;
iii) Judges and the growth of inequalities: new trends in judicial interpretation and enforcement of the law and its implications for the theory of law in civil law systems; and
iv) The EU “Better Regulation Agenda” and its impact on policy practice and on the opening up of regulation.
3.2 Research and teaching in the social sciences and humanities: Pluralism and commitment
This Thematic Line is focused on the renewal of economic thought, underpinned by the study and updating of economic theory and dialogue with other disciplines, namely economic sociology and law. In addition, we intend to foster reflection on the relation between strands of economic thought and analysis and the social responsibility of university research: to what extent does it make sense to talk of the neutrality of economic science?
These objectives must be achieved through training methodologies and scientific practices that understand training itself and research as "democratic experiences" that include forms of integration and communication of innovative knowledge, and spaces of external communication that can feed more open and broader debates, and in so doing, rescue the original purpose of Academia.