Activities
a) Our own publication series: the PIRR
The series Perspectives on Innovation, Risk and Responsibility - PIRR, which is published by the CIRR from 2023 onwards, is issued by the Schulthess publishing house.
After a 12-month waiting period, the volumes of the PIRR publication series will be made openly accessible to the public under a Creative Commons license and can thereafter be downloadedhere.
b) DACH-conference series
Since 2024, the CIRR, together with Prof. Dr. Michael Gruber from the University of Salzburg and Prof. Dr. Oliver Brand from the University of Mannheim, has held an annual special conference dedicated to the legal comparison of an insurance-specific topic from the perspective of the legal systems of Austria, Germany and Switzerland. (Invited) participants are the leading representatives of this area of law from academia, the judiciary, legal counselling and the insurance industry from each of the three countries. The results of the conference will be published in a special issue of the leading German journal, VersR, and thus made available to the specialised public. The CIRR has been a co-organiser of this conference series since its inception and organizes the annual conference, which is held regularly in Zurich.
c) Blog: lexcausae.blog
The new blog portal lexcausae.blog contains current news and reports on the areas of activity of the CIRR and the Chair. In addition to innovation, insurance and liability-related topics, you will also find current articles with cross-border relevance.
The focus is on current judgments from the jurisdictions in which we provide academic support, as well as reports on legal policy projects and developments.
All articles can also be subscribed to as RSS feeds and can be integrated into your own information offerings free of charge.
d) Broad range of lecture and training activities
Prof. Dr. Loacker lectures on the topics covered by the CIRR at various academic and non-academic institutions. In the past, this has included contributions to digital innovations teaching, to open data policy in distribution law, to geoblocking in internet commerce, on the possibilities and legal limits of human genetics and technically assisted reproductive medicine, on big data in insurance law, artificial intelligence in contract and liability law and much more. In this way, the CIRR would also like to make a contribution to citizen science, i.e. the transfer of knowledge from the university as a research location to the wider civil society.
e) CIRR-Portal: ipr-izvr.plus
Through ipr-izvr.plus portal, the CIRR aims to take the idea of specialised information via traditional print media a step further and promote the fusion of knowledge from the digital world with that from the offline world. In this context, an innovative portal has been developed as a further development of the text edition on IPR/ICLR, which has been successful for several editions, which not only updates and expands the book content, but is also intended to become a central point of contact for international private and civil procedure law in Switzerland. In addition to attractively prepared book content, law-seekers will not only find easy-to-use deep links as a helpful guide through the jungle of international law sources, but also current judgement reviews, a monitoring of the current revision situation of the IPRG and much more.
f) Legal Tech Apps
The CIRR is constantly developing applications tailored to the specific needs of legal professionals. The scope of our development work ranges from add-ons for electronic file and message storage, to tools for fully automated linking of both PowerPoint presentations and live websites—for example, to a wide variety of legal sources (example) Meta-search engines such as those for legislative materials and standards under federal, cantonal, and European law, to tools for exam grading, URL shorteners, and digital archiving.
g) CIRR-Portal: vvg.digital
Under vvg.digital, the CIRR, in cooperation with the Swiss Federal Archives, has launched an Internet portal under which all materials on the Swiss Insurance Contract Act (ICA) are presented in a graphically appealing form and in full text, as well as being systematically searchable. This is intended to make a valuable contribution to the interpretation of legal texts in practice, but also to the better scientific examination of this area of law, which is indispensable for the work of the CIRR.
h) eLearning-Hub: ius.zone
Atius.zone, we have developed a series of e-learning applications that expand our entire educational offerings with digital services. These include, among other things, comprehensive self-learning knowledge tests, flashcards, interactive quizzes, seasonal extras, podcasts, and more.
i) Further academic activities
Firstly, contributions to books and journals arepublished on a regular basis in all subject areas of the CIRR. In addition, we are involved in university teaching as well as in postgraduate training and at relevant professional conferences and events.
We also hold webinars on current topics, such as this one on the fair trading law topic of geoblocking, which we realized in cooperation with the
CIPCO, which is also based at our faculty:
j) Development of specialised knowledge management systems
The necessary access to expertise is provided by a well-sorted and up-to-date chair library as well as by access to the world's most important databases and specialist journals in all the subject areas examined by the CIRR. In addition, we continuously document, systematise and digitise the latest relevant publications and official decisions in our internal IT systems. In this way, an ever broader knowlegde base is created for our own present and future research activities. This applies in particular to comparative law.
k) Newsletter and overview of current legal developments
The CIRR offers a newsletter for those interested in the subject, which evaluates the most interesting publications in the German-speaking world from the subject areas examined by the CIRR. Furthermore, current developments, namely in the area of case law and legislation, are followed in a short and precise form via the website and aims to be understandable also for persons without legal background.
l) UFSP "Human Reproduction Reloaded"
The head of the CIRR, Prof Loacker, was involved as a member of the Professors' Assembly (2021-2025) and as co-head of the research area "Normativity of Human Reproduction" (2024) within the university's research focus "Human Reproduction Reloaded". In this context, one of the questions investigated was the extent to which the uninterrupted technical innovation push in the field of reproductive medicine requires a legal foundation and support. The answer to this question can often not only be found from the perspective of a single national law. Rather, it requires more in-depth comparative legal analysis and - if one thinks only of the frequent cases of surrogacy with links to several countries - the clarification of a wide range of preliminary questions, for example with regard to the applicable law.
