Territory and Local Administrative Law

Territory and Local Government Law. In this area the activity of the Group revolves specially around the Màrius Viadel y Martín Chair of Local Legal Studies, in cooperation with UAB's Enric Prat de la Riba Chair of Local Legal Studies.

In this domain research, transfer of knowledge and education have been fully consolidated for years. In the area of specialised training, it is particularly relevant the Local Law Update Forum addressed to public administration staff and professionals involved the legal areas at the local government level. The main postgraduate training project in this area is the Master's Programme in Public Administration Law, run in cooperation with Universidad de Zaragoza since 2018. This programme is linked to the research line on public administration law in the PhD programme. Research activity focuses particularly on the territorial organisation of Catalonia, local environmental law and city planning law, and on directing post-graduate research, master's theses and doctoral theses on local law. Local governance is main thread which gives coherence to the research in this area and allows it to project in legal issues regarding multi-level governance in a context of transition. In the transfer of knowledge field, the group acts as consultant for regional and local governments, public owned companies and other public entities. Finally, the Cátedra Tarragona Smart Mediterranean City (Tarragona Smart Mediterranean City Chair) complements the transfer activity in this domain with specific projects in the local area Tarragona.

Research in this area covers a variety of legal and interdisciplinary topics and areas:

• Administrative justice
• Civil Service Law and human resource management for public administrators
• General administrative law 
• Local governments and governance
• Local policy and regulation 
• Planning Law
• Public procurement law
• Public Ethics and Integrity
• Regulation of public services and public utilities
• Social, Economic and Cultural Rights at subnational level
• Transparency and access to public information law