Since its foundation, the ELPIS network had three coordinators:

Message from the Coordinator

Vasco Pereira da Silva is Full Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon. He is also an Invited Chairholder of the Faculty of Law of the Portuguese Catholic University (UCP) where he read for his Doctorate. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law of  Universidade Nova de Lisboa (FD-UNL) and, abroad, at the Law Faculty of the Leibniz University of Hannover (“Juristische Fakultät – Leibniz Universität Hannover”), the Law Faculty of the University of Rome (“Facultà di Giurisprudenza” – “Sapienza – Università di Roma”), the Law Faculty of the University of Rouen (“Faculté de Droit, Sciences Économiques et Gestion – Université de Rouen”), the «Loyola New Orleans School of Law», in the Master Program on European Constitutional Law of the Law Faculty of the University of Granada (“Universidad de Granada – Máster en Derecho Constitucional Europeo”), in the Law School f the Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (“Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, PUCRS”), in the Federal University of Recife (“Universidade Federal do Pernambuco”), in the University Institute of Brasilia (“Instituto Universitário Brasiliano”), in the Damas Law Faculty of Recife (“Faculdade Damas – Recife”), in the Law Faculty of the University of São Paulo (“Universidade de São Paulo”).

More recently (2nd. November 2018), he was awarded the Honoris Causa Doctorship by the Leibniz Universität Hannover following the indication by the Juristische Fakultät (Germany), as he was before awarded with the same title (1^st. December 2006) by the União Educacional do Planalto Central de Brasília (UNIPLAC) following the indication by the Faculdade de Ciências Jurídicas do Planalto Central (Brazil).

Currently, he is President of the Erasmus and International Relations Office of the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon. He also acts as the General Coordinator of the ELPIS Erasmus+ Network, an European Network that was created by the Leibniz University of Hannover, that joins more than 35 European Universities from Europe and all over the world; as well as the  General Coordinator of  the ELPIS Joint Master Program («European Legal Practice Integrated Studies», LLm. Eur.), held by the Law Faculties of the University of Lisbon, the University of Hannover the University of Rouen and the University Mykolos Romeris, from the Lithuania.

Vasco Pereira da Silva is a member of the Executive Committee of the European Society of Professors in Public Law (Societas Iuris Publici Europaei – S.I.P.E.), of the “International Institute of State Law Studies (“Instituto Internacional de Estudos do Direito do Estado, I.I.E.D.E.”) in Porto Alegre, as well as a founder of the Portuguese Association of Political Science. He was also a member of the Direction of the Instituto de Estudos Políticos of the Portuguese Catholic University (IEP-UCP) and the Coordinator of the Administration and Public Policy Group of the Master’ s and PhD Programs in Political Science at that same Institution.

In Portugal, he is a Senior Researcher of the CDIP (“Centro de Investigação em Dreito Público”), but he is also very active in many international research groups with leading positions such as: General Coordinator of the “ELPIS Research”, that is an European research group that joins scientific representatives of more than 35 countries of the European Union and other parts of the world; or the Portuguese representative in the “Groupe d’ Études et de Recherches sur la Justice Constitutionnel – Institut Louis Favoreu”, that is an international research group that joins researchers on Constitutional Justice from all over the world.

He was a member of various councils and commissions charged by the Government to prepare legislation, such as the Basis of the Territory and Planning Law, the Basis of Environmental Law, the Administrative Procedure Code, the Administrative Process Code, the Administrative Procedure Code of Macao, the Basis of Tax Law.

He has performed talks and conferences in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Greece, Brazil, Angola, United States of America, Mexico and China.

Vasco Pereira da Silva is author of several books and participated in some collective ones, as well as published widely in highly regarded law journals and in various languages, in the fields of Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Human Rights, European and Global Law, Law and Culture,  Environmental Law, Planning Law and Political Science.

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Bernd Oppermann is Professor at Leibniz University Hanover, Germany, where he holds a chair for German, European and International Private Law and Commercial Law. He received his first and second state examination in law at Frankfurt, Germany. He holds the LL.M. degree from U. of California (UCLA), received a Ph.D. (Dr. jur.) from the U. of Frankfurt, and his habilitation from U. of Hamburg for research in private law, civil procedure, business law, and legal theory. More recent publications concern competition law and comparative law.

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Testimony from the First Coordinator

Hilmar Fenge, founder of ELPIS, is at present Emeritus in Hannover.  He studied Law at Marburg/Lahn, Geneva and Heidelberg, where he passed the two State Examinations, graduated as Doctor juris, habilitated for Civil Law, Civl Procedure and Methodology of Law and eventually became Professor in 1973. Following an appointment to a professorship at the University of Hannover, he held there the Chair for Civil Law and Civil Procedure from 1980 to 1999. Besides, he lectured also at the Univerties  of Mainz, Bonn and Hamburg in Germany and – during  short term visits –at various Universities in nine other European countries, mainly in the field of Comparative Law and European Civil Law. Fenge was member of the Senate of the University in Heidelberg (1973-1977), Dean of the Law Faculty in Hannover (1985-1986) and received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Universities in Rouen (1991), Lisboa/Universidade Católica (2003), Le Havre (2004) and Thessaloniki (2008). He has been the German member of the Scientific Committee, constituted by the European Commission for the Colloque in Metz on “Legal Education and Training in Tomorrow’s Europe”, First Vice-President and  subsequently President of the European Law Faculties Association (1995 – 1998). After  his retirement in 1999, he remained still for some time adviser to the organisation of ELPIS.

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