Giovanni Sartor, Part-time Professor of Legal informatics and Legal Theory at the EUI Department of Law, has recently joined a selected group of 22 distinguished scientists who represent the European scientific community in the Scientific Council of the ERC. Upon learning about the news, he shared feeling "very happy and honoured for this appointment, and I will do my best to be up to the challenge."
As a member of the Scientific Council, Professor Sartor will collaborate with other eminent European scientists and scholars to support the fundamental work that the ERC carries out as the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research, setting the ERC strategy and selecting peer review evaluators. Professor Sartor is one of the three newest members joining the ERC’s governing body, after having been selected for their outstanding scientific competence by an independent Identification Committee through multiple consultations with the European scientific community.
Professor Sartor was already deeply familiar with the work of the ERC, having been the Principal Investigator for the ERC Advanced project CompuLaw since 2019, which focuses on the relation between legal norms and computable specifications. Being himself a recipient of an ERC grant has therefore made him appreciate directly "the benefit that [it] can provide to European researchers, enabling them not only to develop their individual projects, but also to set up research teams and support younger colleagues."
Thinking ahead to what he is most looking forward to as he steps into this new role, Professor Sartor remarks on how he enjoys the idea of cooperating with a diverse group of excellent European scientists, from different countries and disciplines, working together towards the shared goal of "promoting European research and ensuring that the ERC program continues to be a success story."
Professor Giovanni Sartor is one of the leading scientists in the domain of artificial intelligence and law. He obtained a degree in Law and a master in computing from the University of Bologna, as well as a PhD at the EUI. He is currently Professor in legal informatics at the University of Bologna and Part-time Professor in Legal informatics and Legal Theory at the EUI. He has published widely on artificial intelligence and law, computational logic, legal theory/philosophy, and information technology law.