The Obwalden Association for Legal Research and the University of Lucerne are launching a joint institute for legal research at the Sarnen site in the canton of Obwalden. From this fall on, it is to start its work as an affiliated institute with the purpose of researching topics related to the case law of the courts and other arbitration boards, further details of which can be found in a press release. The first planned research projects will deal with the access of small and medium-sized companies to justice.
As an affiliated institute, it will be supported by the Obwalden Association for Legal Research. The association is responsible for leading the institute, approving the research program and providing the management and other administrative staff. Technically, the institute is assigned to the Faculty of Law at the University of Lucerne, which underlines the academic quality of the institute.
Bruno Staffelbach, Rector of the University of Lucerne, comments in the press release: “With the Institute for Legal Research, the university can establish itself more broadly in Central Switzerland and become the first university with its own institute to promote academic knowledge in the field of legal research”.
The institute is to be managed by four professors from the Faculty of Law, namely Michele Luminati as Managing Director, in addition to Daniel Girsberger, Bernhard Rütsche and Anna Coninx.
The start-up phase will be funded over four years with contributions from the Cantonal Government obtained via the New Regional Policy (NRP) of the Swiss federal government (Federal Council) and financing from the Swisslos Fund amounting to 560,000 Swiss francs. The institute’s premises will be based at Startup Pilatus, a coworking space in Sarnen.
