CEDIS is one of the first Portuguese Research Units in the field of Law, whose creation is linked to the foundation of the NOVA School of Law.
With a plural vision of Law in contemporary society, an interdisciplinary and innovative approach to legal research, an international network with European and Portuguese speaking countries, researchers with diverse backgrounds and an open access orientation, CEDIS was created to be a research centre on Law and Society, reflecting the approach of NOVA School of Law to legal studies.
The research that CEDIS currently conducts is organised in the following areas of Law and Society
- Criminal Law
- Equality Law
- Law and History
- Law and politics
- Law and religion
- Law and security
- Law, Intercultural and Lusophone
- Private Law
- Procedural Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution
- Transitional justice
- Tax and Social Security Law
Mission
CEDIS mission is to promote quality and innovation in Law teaching and Research in the field of socio-legal studies, to enrich and update the library of NOVA School of Law, to provide the community with open access to legal documents and to support the creation and development of interfaces between research activities and community services.
To fulfil its mission, CEDIS develops its activities around the following themes:
- Study of law in its relations with society, promoting a multidisciplinary awareness of law and society through an integration of legal and non-legal approaches to research and by opening up to methodologies of legal analysis developed by, or devised in collaboration with, other fields of knowledge, with an emphasis on our sister social sciences, including economics;
- Studying new or emerging legal realities, such as transnational legal phenomena, alternative forms of dispute resolution, or new issues in the regulation of intellectual property and competition law;
- Bringing to the fore the study of the practical application of Law;
- To support the implementation of a new academic and teaching model, based on two-way communication and the participation of students in research activities;
- To support projects aimed at providing services to the community;
- To increase the international projection of Portuguese legal studies.
Also within the scope of its mission, CEDIS seeks to intensify the articulation between teaching and research, through the involvement of graduate and postgraduate students in its research teams, especially students attending the PhD programmes in Law and Law & Security.
