Conference Report: The First Conference of the Societa' Italiana per la Ricerca nel Diritto Comparato (SIRD) on 'the New Frontiers of Comparative Law' Held in Milano
![handle is hein.kluwer/erpl0019 and id is 695 raw text is: European Review of Private Law 5-20111687-688] @ Kluwer Law International BV I Printed in the Great Britain
Conference Report: The First Conference of the Societa'
Italiana per la Ricerca nel diritto Comparato (SIRD)
on 'The New Frontiers of Comparative Law' held
in Milano
NADIA COGGIOLA*
The first Conference of the Societa' Italiana per la Ricerca nel diritto Comparato (SIRD)
on 'The New Frontiers of Comparative Law' was held at the Universita Statale di Milano
on the 5th, 6th, and 7th days of May 2011, under the auspices of the Accademia dei
Lincei. The purpose of the conference was to single out and to discuss promising themes
for research in the field of comparative law by Italian scholars.
SIRD is the acronym of the Societe Italiana per la Ricerca nel Diritto Comparato
(www.sirdcomp.it), the new scientific society established by a group of Italian compara-
tive law scholars in September 2010. The purpose of the SIRD is to advance research in
comparative law and to encourage exchanges among scholars working in the same field.
According to its by-laws, SIRD promotes the diffusion of the Italian comparative
research and the worldwide circulation of new ideas, by way of congresses, courses,
translations of Italian and foreign works, grants, and support to its members.
Founded by several distinguished Italian scholars (among them, to cite a few,
Rodolfo Sacco, Antonio Gambaro, Guido Alpa, Giovanni Conso, Michele Graziadei,
Alessandro Pizzorusso, and Gustavo Zagrebelsky), SIRD has recently been appointed
as the National Committee of the International Association of Legal Science and now
counts more than 200 active members.
Actually, 'active' is the right adjective to refer to the SIRD and to the spirit of its
founders and its members.
The role of comparative law in Italian universities is remarkable: Italian
universities are the home of around 200 chairs in comparative law, and the subject is
compulsory in every law degree programme. Italian scholars have often been praised by
the international academic community for their contributions to the development
of comparative law studies and their inspiring research. We can mention in this respect
the work done in the field of legal anthropology and the research carried out with
respect to African, Chinese, Indian, and Far Eastern legal systems. The most recent
developments in comparative law studies in Italy deal with the theoretical problems
of legal translation, legal ontologies, and the use of cognitive sciences in comparative
legal research.
This enthusiasm recently flowed into the SIRD, and its first congress, devoted to
the 'The New Frontiers of Comparative Law', witnessed the renewal of this vibrant
spirit.
As mentioned above, the aim of the conference was to convene Italian compara-
tive law scholars to explore upcoming and promising fields of research. With this
purpose in mind, the conference organizers presented a large selection of topics to the
audience.
On the first day, Antonio Gambaro (University of Milano) addressed the metho-
dological problems raised by recourse to quantitative methods and indicators to measure
Research Fellow Comparative Private Law, Faculty of Law, University of Torino.
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Conference Report: The First Conference of the Societa' Italiana per la Ricerca nel Diritto Comparato (SIRD) on 'the New Frontiers of Comparative Law' Held in Milano
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