Legal Research at LiU

Research in jurisprudence at Linköping University has two areas of specialization: commercial law and welfare law. This means that we research into legal issues that are clearly linked to commercial operations or to legal functions for constructing and maintaining a welfare society that respects fundamental values such as law and order, non-discrimination and individual privacy.

In principle, everything that takes place in social and commercial contexts has legal dimensions. It may concern which person or persons decide on different issues, and what happens when someone goes beyond the limits. The central commercial legal issues also include how a company’s achievements, such as inventions, may be protected legally through patents and so on, and what consequences various transactions may have in terms of taxation and accounting. Issues examined in welfare law include the legal criteria for social service work, the legal consequences of personal relationships, education law and legal issues related to migration.

The field of research in jurisprudence is very broad. Roughly speaking, commercial law research at Linköping University is divided into civil law, tax and accounting law and other commercial law issues. The most important welfare law areas include social, criminal, child and family law. A research project or a research area may well have dimensions of commercial law as well as welfare law. One example would be damage in conjunction with the exercise of public authority; a second, EU law; a third, medical law - a number of issues related to the pharmaceutical industry may be characterized as commercial law issues, while others, such as the regulation of privacy and consent issues, fall under welfare law.

Commercial Law or Commercial and Business Law?

Civil Law

In civil law, our research includes how informal collaborations are to be assessed, collaborations which have not necessarily been formalized in, for example, a written agreement or a limited company.

Transactions/measures which have been studied have both an economic and a legal side. It's about phenomena such as of payment transactions, corporate equity, credits, loans, corporate restructuring and bankruptcy. A central focus of these studies is often to clarify the tension created between the concept in economic theory of value as what constitute assets/liabilities, and the legal theory that distinguishes between property and value.

Primary researchers in this area are professor Ingrid Arnesdotter, professor Harald Ullman, J.D. Karin Wallin-Norrnan, J.D. Anders Holm,  J.D. Herbert Jacobson and J.D Emil Elgebrant and J.D Elif Härkönen and doctoral students Lisa Donlau, Britta Behrendt Jonsson och Sebastian Wärmländer.

Tax and accounting law

Research in tax and accounting law relates to such issues/areas as knowledge-based companies, intangible assets, offshoring and restructuring of companies, the relationship between accounting and taxation, law and policy motivations, and contract-based partnerships between companies.

Primary researchers in this area are associate professor Jan Kellgren and J.D. Maria Nelson and J.D Emil Elgebrant.

Other Business law research

Besides the areas described above, there are a number of more varied issues which can wholly or partly be attributed to business law research but which primarily belong to the areas of public law, criminal law or philosophy of law. Research on the right of access to private land, environmental law and legal historic analysis of legal argumentation are included in this area.

Primary researchers in this area are J.D. Åsa Åslund and PhD students Johan Wessen and Johannes Lerm.

Welfare Law

Child and relationship law

In child and relationship law we research into such issues as jurisprudence in connection with the preparation of health care under the law of the Care of Young Persons (LVU), legal responses to parental separations in the light of the CRC and the legal implications of personal relationships throughout the life cycle.

Researchers in this area are primarily Prof. Johanna Schiratzki and LL. dr. Ann-Christine Petersson Hjelm.

Freedom of movement, health care and social insurance

Research in this area includes the EU legal coordination system for social security issues, with consideration given to the gender perspective and the European regulatory framework for health care across borders.

Researchers in this area include LL.dr. Vicki Paskalia.

Research in commercial law is carried out at Linköping University in the Division of Law and Jurisprudence, which belongs to the Department of Financial and Industrial Development.

Research into welfare law is carried out at Linköping University in the Division of Social Work, which belongs to the Department of Social and Welfare Studies.