Research

The Centre for European Law and Governance provides research that covers many areas of European policy: from competition policy, free movement rules, and financial and economic regulation, to environmental policy, structural funds, social and employment policy and industrial relations, the CAP, fisheries policies, food safety, nano-technology regulation, patent law etc.

While studying many different policy areas, much of the research of the Centre is focused on issues of governance, at the interplay between European law, regulation, policy analysis and constitutionalism.

European multi-level governance is at the heart of the Centre's expertise, including:

• The vertical dimension of multi-level governance, namely the interaction between the European, national, regional and local levels of governance (Cole, Wincott, Scully, Feindt, Hunt) and multi-level constitutionalism (Priban and Breda)
• The horizontal governance dimension and issues of better regulation and accountability, such as public-private relationships, the place of science in European policy-making, participatory governance, and implementation of EU law (Smismans, Lee, Stokes, Krajewska, Feindt, Baker, Wahl-Jorgensen, Garcia-Blanco, Smith, Drake)
• European socio-economic governance, from European macro-economic governance and financial regulation to employment and social policy and industrial relations (Dyson, Smismans, Wincott, Hunt, Turnbull, Parsons, Hann, Prosser, Hauptmeier)
• Environmental policy and risk regulation, including food safety, occupational health and safety, and nano-technology regulation (Lee, Smismans, Stokes, Baker, Feindt)
• New Member States, and the EU's external dimension and neighbourhood policy (Priban, Khaliq, Krajewska, Baker, Smismans)