RTG 2483/1: Dynamic Integration – Law in-between Harmonisation and Plurality in Europe (DynamInt)

The traditional paradigm of an ever-closer Union in all areas faces heightened trends of disintegration and robust challenges. European Law requires a new equilibrium between harmonisation and plurality that will make processes of integration more dynamic. The potential of harmonisation and, at the same time, decentralised rules, principles and institutions require more systematic research to inspire a vision of integration that is open and flexible. Analysing these dimensions from the perspective of legal scholarship is at the core of DynamInt.Its research agenda is to reveal concrete and meaningful elements of a dynamic integration order. The methodological approach of DynamInt is international and interdisciplinary. Both features have strong institutional foundations. On the one hand, DynamInt is to be situated within the outstanding network of leading universities in Europe united in the European Law School, which has constructed an architecture of pan-European structured PhD training. On the other hand, it integrates a high proportion of scholars who strongly focus on fundamental research. It benefits from manifold interdisciplinary cooperation under the auspices of the Law & Society Institute Berlin. This approach transcends the narrow German legal scholarship discourse and takes account of insights from other European jurisdictions, as well as economic, philosophical and historical dimensions in different legal areas. A foundational programme incorporating international perspectives and legal scholarship informed by other disciplines will be initiated with a view to combining these distinctive methodological features. They include the obligation to research abroad and imply solid opportunities to network across disciplines. DynamInt engages in overcoming the typical division within legal scholarship (private, public, criminal). While this division may have heuristic benefits, it also restricts and obscures research dimensions, and risks preventing innovation. The graduate school will inevitably research specific areas from the perspective of a dynamic integration order, e.g. Banking and Capital Market Union, competition law, digitalisation, consumer law, but its main ambition is to shed light on four cross-cutting themes. These consist of (1) aspects of overspill, (2) evolving processes of dynamic integration, (3) benchmarks for such phenomena, and (4) foundational layers beyond law and their relationship to legal concepts.