Mission and Goals

At JusGov, innovation and excellence in research are at the heart of our vision. We are strategically minded and embrace an ethos of growth, consolidation, and refinement. Headquartered in northern Portugal, we capitalize on the foundational threads that shape our scientific agenda, tailoring it to meet the evolving demands of our global interdisciplinary environment.

Our research proceeds on an interdisciplinary footing. This is why we are developing projects combining different fields of expertise, such as Law, Criminology, Economics, Psychology, IT, and the Health Sciences. These projects address issues that are complex and require the convergence of a range of academic backgrounds, all of our Research Groups, and cross-generational networking.

We believe that involving early career researchers and talented students is a must, for we are committed to sustaining a vibrant and forward-looking research community. That explains why we have a Research Group focused on students—the School of Researchers—which affords them the chance to be trained for scholarly discovery and exploration, besides providing a space to showcase/discuss their studies and interact with more experienced researchers and their colleagues, a vehicle for taking part in national and international scientific meetings, and advice on how to get funded.

It is our conviction that domestic and cross-border collaborations are pivotal to the development of cutting-edge research. Thus, we maintain and reinforce our national partnerships with strategic R&D Units and accredited Collaborative Labs (DTx CoLab and ProChild CoLAB), but also with entrepreneurial associations (Sustainability Observatory).

It is also our mission to increase our impact in the Portuguese-speaking world and, concurrently, to widen our international relations to other geographical areas, including the Spanish portion of the Euroregion of Galicia and the remainder of Spain, the English-speaking countries, the European Union as a whole, and the Eastern Hemisphere, since these relations grant us access to valuable know-how and resources, enable us to bring our research results to a worldwide audience, and ensure our involvement in the resolution of pressing matters of global concern.

We aspire to provide our researchers, not least those who are at the dawn of their careers, with the most suitable opportunities for their scientific and professional flourishing. For this purpose, we encourage and endorse research missions in benchmark institutions abroad, helping our members to sharpen their knowledge, network regularly and engage in collaborative research projects with other researchers; we stimulate more and more participation in peer-reviewed scientific events throughout the world, to ensure that our researchers can disseminate their work and get invaluable feedback from other experts; and we incentivise publishing in high-impact scientific journals, which is critical to raising international awareness of our research.

We expect our research to have a tangible impact on our social fabric. For this purpose, on top of developing projects, we organise short-term advanced training opportunities, primarily focused on specific legal research matters (often in conjunction with CEJUR, so as to have a greater practical repercussion); we host summer courses on the burning topics of today’s research, targeting both national and international students; we are increasingly involved in outreach activities, offering mentorship to students during research stays, thus fostering the cultivation of younger minds; and we stand by our commitment to the Science and Technology Week and the “Cientificamente Provável” (Scientifically Likely) programme, thus bringing JusGov increasingly closer to high school students and sparking the interest of the wider public, most especially the youth, in scientific research.

We place great value on the professional experience of our researchers, both academically and in other areas of relevance to our commonwealth. We keep leveraging our researchers’ experience as politicians, judges, and lawyers. This wealth of experience is to be constantly turned into a means of expanding research from a practical angle and developing projects directly aimed at transferring meaningful knowledge to society.

Besides, we are fully committed to implementing our plans in compliance with the principles of gender equality, inclusion, and data protection. We welcome the advice of the UM Gender Equality Commission, pay close attention to inclusivity concerns, as research must be open to everyone, and strictly comply with data protection regulations, guaranteeing the safety and privacy of all those we liaise with.