Research focus

The Chair for Public Law, IT Law and Environmental Law (Head: Prof. Dr. Gerrit Hornung, LL.M.) is integrated into the Institute of Economic Law (IWR). It concentrates on two main areas of research and teaching:

The focus of our research activities are the legal issues of modern information technologies. The chair is oriented towards interdisciplinary, technology-related research and brings legal expertise to the Research Center for Information System Design (ITeG) at the University of Kassel. Cooperating with scientists from technical and social science disciplines, we investigate the legal issues of the information society with the aim of designing and applying new technologies in a legally compliant manner. At the same time, new social conflicts arise from the constant technological change, and thus new challenges for the law emerge. Our research includes the development of regulatory strategies for these challenges. Third-party funded projects have been and continue to be supported, for example, by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community.

With environmental law, the chair contributes to the wide range of sustainability research, which is one of the core research areas of the University of Kassel. Besides works on the jurisprudential theory of innovation, the chair is particularly concerned with the use of information technology as a means for sustainability and conservation of natural resources.