UV REGULATION RESEARCH GROUP
Our current research projects on «Administrative planning» (2024-2026), «Algorithmic Law» (2025-2029) and former research actions, such as the European Jean Monnet Network «Sharing Economy and Inequalities across Europe» (2019-2022), are set up by a team of experts (in administrative law, constitutional law, tax law, labor law, economics and sociology) from the University of Valencia and other European Universities, who have been conducting research on the regulation of the digital transformation of many social and economic activities over the last years. Our research aims at analysing, from a multidisciplinary and comparative approach, the most relevant problems raised by the regulation of the so called digital economy (i. e. peer-to-peer economy, digital platforms issues, collaborative consumption, etc.), and in particular of those systems of production and consumption of goods which use recently developed information technology to enable new kinds of arrangements that, due to transaction costs and information asymmetries, were previously too difficult to implement. Our starting hypothesis is that most systems of digital economy need to be specifically regulated in order to clarify the law and strike a fair balance between the interests at stake, as those systems present new and substantially different issues that were not foreseen at the time current regulations were enacted. Also, we guess that equality may suffer if public powers do not address this problem throughout public regulation specifically designed for those markets. Our research projects, thus, are trying to determine whether we can prove these hypothesis right in order to propose the proper regulatory frameworks with an empirical knowledge of their social and economic outputs.
After at least ten years of continuous development and a lot of academic studies on the economic basis of the phenomenon, mostly developed in the United States and by scholars who work there, we can consider that we already have a complete and deep understanding of the fundamental dynamics of the digital economy (as well as some of its most ubicuous examples: the so-called collaborative economy or the digital platform economy). In Spain and Europe, also, some research has already been carried out (for instance, in the past, by some members of the Regulation Research Group at the University of Valencia). However, the regulatory challenges that result from these changes are yet to be successfully solved at least, in four essential aspects (which are the pivotal areas of analysis and study of our research projects:
1) Neither the EU nor the Spanish legal system have managed, for the time being, to draw up a regulatory framework which is able to reconcile the efficiency gains brought by these new business models with the protection of some basic constitutional social values. That is why we consider essential to study what normative limits impose the social clause of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and which obligations to public powers and Public Administration will be declined, as well in their economic regulation duties and in the exercise of their control and inspection powers.
2) Given the huge impact that big data, automated decision-making and computational power have on digital platform brokerage, these technologies must be closely examined from a legal perspective which assesses their role in enhancing digital processes as well as in generating possible situations of social inequality, addressing the regulatory choices in which their efficiency and social effects may result.
3) A third essential dimension is related to the assessment of this impact on social fairness and equality when it affects social groups specially endangered or vulnerable. . Gender or social biases, as well of other possible forms of private and public discrimination are therefore necessary to be studied, assessed and analysed from both a theoretical and practical perspective that takes into account the traditional legal tools and public action in the fight against discrimination in a renewed way.
4) Finally, an exhaustive evaluation of the impact on social fairness and inequalities of the policies applied to already consolidated sharing economy markets, such as transportation, is still to be made.
MEMBERS OF THE REGULATION RESEARCH GROUP
RESEARCH PROJECTS
The activities of the REGULATION Research Group at the University of Valencia are currently funded by the Spanish Government (Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities, within the Spanish National Research Plan: Research project ID2023-152781NB-I00 on «Administrative planning») and by the Valencian Government (Generalitat Valenciana, Universities, Research and Science Office: PROMETEU Algorithmic Law 2025-2029 Project), as well as for our alma mater, the University of València. The Regulation Research Group of the University of València has also been also lead partner of some EU funded research activities in the past (such as the SHINE Jean Monnet Network («Sharing Economy and Inequalities across Europe», 611585-EPP-1-2019-1-ES-EPPJMO-NETWORK) and currently collaborates in different European research actions with teams of institutions such as the University of Bolonia, the Catholic University of Louvain, the University of Palermo, the Univerand the University of Barcelona.
Current Research Projects:
- 2024-2026 «Administrative Planning» (PlanAdm) (Ref:PID2023-152781NB-I00; Project Coordinators: Andrés Boix Palop and Reyes Marzal Raga funded by the Spanish Government, Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities: State Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation 2021-2023 by the Spanish Research Agency)
- 2025-2026 «Algorithmic Law» (CIPROM/2024/16; PROMETEU Research project; Coordinator: Andrés Boix Palop; Funded by Generalitat Valenciana, Universities, Research and Science Department)
Past Research Projects:
- 2022-2024 «Registro público de algoritmos» (Ref: PDC2022-133890-I00, Project Coordinators: Andrés Boix Palop and Gabriel Doménech Pascual, funded by the Spanish Government, Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spanish National R&D Action)
- 2021-2024 «Algorithmical Law» (PROMETEU/2021/009; Coordinator: Andrés Boix Palop; Funded by Generalitat Valenciana, Universities, Research and Science Department)
- 2020-2023 «Digital economy regulation: equality guarantees provided by public powers and algorithmical tools» (PID2019-108745GB-I00; Coordinators: Andrés Boix Palop and Gabriel Doménech Pascual; Funded by the Spanish Government, Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spanish Research Plan, 2017-2020)
- 2019-2022 «Sharing Economy and Inequalities across Europe» (611585-EPP-1-2019-1-ES-EPPJMO-NETWORK, Coordinator: Andrés Boix Palop; Funded by the European Commission, European Education and Culture Executive Agency)
- 2021-2022 «Transcendiendo las tecnologías inteligentes: retos éticos, sociales y jurídicos. El nuevo paradigma constitucional de los derechos fundamentales. Igualdad y ruralidad» (Ref. 096-034298, Project Coordinator: Joaquín Sarrión Esteve, funded by UNED, Research Projects Plan 2021)
- 2021-2022 «El nuevo derecho de la ciudad» (Ref UV-INV-AE-1541051, IP: Reyes Marzal Raga, funded by the University of Valencia, Special research actions for 2020 and 2021 [Exp. INV20-01-23])
- 2018-2021 «The regulation of digital transformation and the sharing economy» (PROMETEU/2017/064; Coordinator: Lorenzo Cotino Hueso; Funded by Generalitat Valenciana, Universities, Research and Science)
- 2017-2020 «Retos actuales para la regulación de los drones (DroneLawChallenges)» (2017-VICE-009, IP: Joaquín Sarrión Esteve, Funded by UNED, Plan for the Promotion of Research, Transfer and Internationalization of Knowledge (PPITIC) of the UNED, «Independent Thinking» Projects)
- 2016-2019 «The Regulation of the Sharing Economy» funded by the Spanish Government (DER2015-67613-R; Coordinators: Andrés Boix Palop and Gabriel Doménech Pascual; Funded by the Spanish Government, Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness Research Plan, 2016-2019)
- 2017-2018 «Retos para la regulación de la Inteligencia Artificial IALAWCHALLENGES» (EUN2017-87410, Europa Investigación 2017; Project Coordinator: Joaquín Sarrión Esteve; funded by the Spanish Government, Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness Research Plan, 2017)
- 2014-2018 «Pluralismo y contenidos en la nueva regulación española de los mercados audiovisuales» (DER2012-37122 , IP: Manuel Pereiro Cárceles, funded by the the Spanish Government, Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Grants for predoctoral contracts for the training of PhDs)
- 2013-2015 «Pluralism and Contents in Audiovisual Market Regulation in Spain», funded by the Spanish Government (DER2012-37122, Coordinator: Andrés Boix Palop; Funded by the Spanish Government, Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness Research Plan, 2013-2015)
