COMPARATIVE AND EUROPEAN DIGITAL LAW

ended

Digitalisation is a key driver for empowering communities and responding to societal challenges. Yet, digital skills are unevenly distributed across Europe, with profound regional and social differences, and lack of digital literacy is still a major source of inequality and a barrier to an inclusive education. The COVID-19 pandemic further highlighted the importance of digitalisation, also unveiling the role of universities in addressing the digital gap. The 3-years JM Chair “Comparative and European Digital Law” - CODE aims at stimulating teaching, research and debating activities about EU Digital Law in a comparative perspective. The Project addresses one priority of the European Commission: “A Europe fit for the Digital Age”, with the objective of empowering people in economy and society through education and skills. By pondering on the main aspects of the digital revolution, CODE focuses on the European way to the digital revolution, and on a digital transition rooted in European common values. At the same time, it deals with the current digital gap by introducing digital competence as a core skill, promoting high-quality and inclusive digital education and the circulation of knowledge, in a constant dialogue between the academic world and the society. These goals are mirrored in the two Modules of the Course - CODE Intro and CODE Lab – and in the planned activities: i) students’ presentation of their papers in a public event; ii) a student-curated “blawg” (legal blog) with news, papers and relevant material; iii) student-curated meetings with schools on “Digital civic engagement”; iv) a Special Issue in a peer reviewed journal, and v) a Roundtable on Digital Law as a final event. Thanks to these activities, CODE will ponder on the role of digitalisation for an open, fair, diverse, and democratic society, and on how to digitise the European society in an inclusive manner, unlocking the potential of digital technologies for learning and teaching.