The Institute
The Integrative Research Institute Law & Society (LSI) Berlin is a place for interdisciplinary legal studies at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. It was established in 2008 by Prof. Susanne Baer and awarded Integrative Research Institute at HU Berlin in 2019, funded by the German Excellence Initiative.
The LSI is an interdisciplinary institute where questions about the function, controllability, and interrelationships of law are identified, methodologically reflected upon, and contextualized historically and comparatively. By supplementing dogmatic legal research with the systematic inclusion of the social sciences, humanities, and cultural studies, it questions knowledge formations that have become entrenched in disciplines and provides institutional, personnel, and content-related impetus for integrative and reflexive research on law and society. The LSI thus draws on traditions of legal sociological and legal historical research and sees itself as connected to the Law & Society movement that emerged from legal realism. As an integrated research institute, the LSI's goal is to support interdisciplinary cooperation and thus enable a framework for innovative approaches across disciplinary boundaries.
The work of the LSI is divided into thematic research areas and is enriched by visits from international guests. In this way, the LSI now serves as a hub for a wide network of national and international collaborations in interdisciplinary legal research. Particularly close collaborations exist with the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford, the Department of Politics at Princeton University, and the Centre for Fundamental Rights at the Hertie School of Governance. Further permanent collaborations with the Centre Marc Bloch at Humboldt University in Berlin, the American Academy in Berlin, and Bard College Berlin underscore the institutional networking. During the lecture periods, the LSI also organizes lecture series and book launches on current topics.
The promotion of young academics is particularly important: this includes hiring young researchers for ongoing research projects, applying for international doctoral scholarships through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and establishing our own Law & Society doctoral program. In addition, a teaching and research collaboration has been developed with the Department of Politics at Princeton University as part of the Constitutionalism Under Stress (CONSTRESS) program, which enables students and doctoral candidates from both institutions to study at Princeton and Berlin.