Key Staff


Lucia Serena Rossi (Project Coordinator September 2016 - October 2018)

Full professor of EU law, Coordinator of the international PhD programme in European Law at the University of Bologna and Director of the International Research Centre on European Law of the University of Bologna (C.I.R.D.E.). Since 2014 she is the Legal Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for European Policies, Department of EU Policies, Italian Government and the Representative of the Italian Government at the Governing Board of the European Law Academy (ERA). Since 2010 she has been Ad Personam Jean Monnet Chair. She is the Director of the master on EU projects and Funds of the University of Bologna. She has been visiting professor in several universities, including King's College London, Pantheon Sorbonne and R. Schuman Strasbourg. In July 2018 she has been appointed judge of the European Court of Justice for the period from 7 October 2018 to 6 October 2024. She took the oath before the Court on 8 October 2018

Find out more here.


Prof. Federico CasolariFederico Casolari (Project Coordinator; October 2018-)

Associate professor of European Union Law at the University of Bologna, where he teaches EU law and Global and supranational law. In April 2018 he has been appointed Deputy Head of the Department of Legal Studies of the University of Bologna. He holds a PhD in EC Law from the University of Bologna and it has been a research fellow of the Istituto Affari Internazionali. He currently serves as member of the Flying Faculty of the China-EU School of Law (CESL). In 2015 he has been elected as member of the Executive Council of the Italian Society of International and European Union Law for the period 2015-2018. Speaker at a number of international conferences and symposia, academic institutions and universities, such as Istituto Affari Internazionali (Rome), Institut d'Etudes Européennes (Brussels), European University Institute (Florence), European Central Bank (Frankfurt), British Institute of International and Comparative Law (London), University of Nice, Kazakh Humanities and Law University (Astana), Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Budapest), Australian National University (Canberra), Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (Wellington), University of Fribourg, Emergency Planning College (Easingwold, UK), etc. His current research agenda includes the EU external relations, the relationship between European Union law and international law, the general principles of EU law, the international and EU disaster law.

Find out more here.

Prof. Andrea BiondiAndrea Biondi (CEL Unit Coordinator)

Professor of EU law and Director of the Centre for European Law at King’s College London. He is a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Warsaw, Freie Universität of Berlin and Bocconi University of Milan. He is a member of the Bar of Florence as well as being an Academic Member of Francis Taylor Buildings Chambers in London. Since 2015 he is a legal advisor on EU law to the Italian Prime Minister Office. Professor Biondi is on the International Advisory Board of European Public Law, King’s College Law Journal, European State Aid Law Quarterly and the European Public Private Partnership Law Review. He has published widely in the field EU state aid and public procurement law and he has written extensively on the notion of effective judicial protection and on the pros and cons of harmonisation of procedural rules at the European Level. 

Find out more here


Prof. Isabelle Bosse-PlatièreIsabelle Bosse-Platière (IODE Unit Co-coordinator)

Professor of European Law at the University of Rennes since 2010. She holds a Jean Monnet Chair 'Principles and objectives of external Action of the EU'. She is head of the Centre of European Research (CEDRE) which is part of the Institut de l’Ouest : Droit et Europe (UMR CNRS 6262) and member of the direction board of the Centre of Excellence Jean Monnet of Rennes. She is also Member of the Centre for Law of European External Relations (CLEER, La Haye). Her researches focus on the External Relations of the EU in its institutional and judicial dimensions. She wrote many book and articles on these topics. She is co-responsible for two chronicles about the External Relations of the EU in two majors EU Law Reviews (one semestrial in the Revue trimestrielle de droit européen and one annual in the Annuaire du droit de l’Union européenne). She mostly teaches European Law.

Find out more here


Prof. Cécile RapoportCécile Rapoport (IODE Unit Co-coordinator)

Professor of EU Law at the University of Rennes. She will co-supervise the French part of the project with Prof. Bosse-Platière. Her research and teaching activities deal with EU Law from both an institutional and material perspective. Most of its researches concern External dimension of EU law. She has published many books and articles on institutional and procedural aspects of EU’s External Action. She is in charge of master courses dealing with External dimension of EU law such as: Legal issues of EU’s trade policy; International and European Economic Law; Legal issues of EU migration policies; Legal Issues of EU’s proximity relations. She is supervising Phd students working on External action topics and co-supervising the Master/LLM double degree “EU law and WTO Law with concentration in international trade and investment law” created between by University of Rennes 1 and University of Ottawa.

Find out more here.

Giacomo Di Federico (CIRDE)Prof. Giacomo Di Federico

PhD in EC Law from the University of Bologna where he is an associate professor holding two courses on EU law (Foundations of EU law and EU Law Advanced). He is a member of the International Research Centre on European Law (CIRDE) and is on the board of professors of the international PhD programme in EU Law at the University of Bologna. He has taught in Italy and abroad in 2nd and 3rd cycle courses, including MA and LLM programmes, and has been invited speaker at international conferences. He is also visiting professor at the Departamento di Ciencia Politica y Relaciones Internationales of Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. He is author of more than 35 articles and reviews, published in national and international law journals and collective volumes, a monographic work and editor or co-editor of 4 collective volumes. His main fields of interest are the internal market, competition law and healthcare law.
Find out more here.

Prof. Takis TridimasTakis Tridimas (CEL) 

Takis Tridimas joined King’s College in September 2013. Before then, he was the Sir John Lubbock Professor of Banking Law at Queen Mary College, University of London (2004-2013), Professor of European law at the University of Southampton (1998-2003) and Fellow, St John’s College, University of Cambridge (1995-1998). He also served as référendaire at the ECJ (1992-1995) and was senior legal adviser to the EU Presidency and Chairman of the Committee set up by the EU Council of Ministers to draft the Treaty of Accession of 2003. He has acted as advisor or counsel to the European Central Bank, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the EU Court of Auditors. Professor Tridimas is also the Nancy A. Patterson Distinguished Faculty Scholar and Professor at Pennsylvania State University. He is, or has been, visiting professor in many universities, including the College of Europe, Bruges, Sciences Po, Université Panthéon Assas (Paris II), and the University of Genova. He is a barrister at Matrix Chambers. His interests cover the whole area of EU law and focus specifically on judicial protection, constitutional remedies, comparative constitutionalism, economic and monetary union and banking law.

Find out more here.


Other Staff


Alessandro Spano

Dr Spano is a Senior Research Associate at the Dickson Poon School of Law at King’s College London where he conducts research in the areas of EU law and international economic law. Dr Spano is also a Research Associate at the Centre of Commercial Law at the Faculty of Laws at University College London (UCL) and he is the Academic Convenor for the Law Modules at the European Social and Political Studies Department (ESPS) at UCL where he lectures EU law, public international law, Cyber law and Chinese law.  In 2016, he was awarded with the Baillet Latour Fund Visiting Fellowship at the EU-China Research Centre at the College of Europe in Bruges. Since 2012, he has been Research Fellow at the Asian Institute of  International Financial Law at the University of Honk Kong (HKU). From 2009 to 2012, he was Research Fellow at the School of Law of King’s College London and in April 2009, he was awarded with the European Commission’s EU-China Science and Technology Fellowship Programme. In this respect, he conducted research in academic institutions in mainland China and Hong Kong in the areas of international economic law, competition law and Chinese law. From 2009 to 2011, he was a Visiting Scholar and Lecturer at the School of Law of the Tsinghua University of Beijing. Dr Alessandro Spano holds a PhD in law (KCL), an MA in Advanced European Studies (College of Europe, Natolin) and a degree in law (Paris X Nanterre).


Carlo Tovo (September 2016 - October 2018)

Postdoctoral researcher in EU law and Adjunct Professor at the University of Bologna, Department of Legal Studies.
Carlo graduated in 2011 from the University of Bologna, Faculty of Law. In 2015 he has been awarded a double PhD degree in European Law and Public law from the University of Bologna and the University of Strasbourg, after having successfully defended a PhD thesis on trans-European networks in energy, telecommunications and transport fields.
In the framework of his research on the EU institutional framework, he has published a monograph on 'EU decentralised agencies' (in Italian), was invited to intervene in various conferences and workshops throughout Europe and is coordinating the Young Researchers Platform of the Academic Research Network on EU Executive Governance (TARN).
In 2016 he won the R. Monaco Prize for the best PhD thesis in EU law from the Italian Society of International Law and European Union Law. 

In October 2018 he reached the Europea Court of Justice as Administrateur Juriste (cabinet of Justice Rossi).


Susanna Villani

Postdoctoral researcher in EU law at the University of Bologna, Department of Legal Studies and academic tutor for the chair of international law at the School of Political Science, University of Bologna (Forlì Campus). 

In 2011, Susanna acquired the Bachelor’s degree in International Studies and in 2013 the Master’s Degree in International Relations at the School “Cesare Alfieri” of the University of Florence. She holds a PhD in EU law from the University of Bologna and the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) in Madrid wherein she is also external collaborator for the course of EU Law. In addition, Susanna has been academic tutor on occasion of the CESL Elective Course 2016 Current Issues of European Integration and is currently member of the Editorial Staff of the Journal European Papers. Her main fields of interest are the EU’s external relations, the international and EU disaster law as well as the transfer of Big Data and the protection of fundamental rights. 

Find out more here.


Nicolas Pigeon

Postdoctoral researcher in EU law at the University of Rennes 1, Institut de l'Ouest: Droit et Europe (UMR CNRS 6262).

Nicolas graduated in 2010 from the Ecole de Droit de la Sorbonne (University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne). He holds a PhD in legal studies (2018), having discussed a thesis on the implementation of the EU competence regarding the protection of international investments. His main fields of interest are: EU external economic action and EU juridisdictional sysem.

Within the LAwTTIP Network, he works with Prof. Isabelle Bosse-Platière and Prof. Cécile Rapoport on the impact of EU new generation trade agreements on the other strands of the EU external action.

Contact: nicolas.pigeon@univ-rennes1.fr.