The Centre

The Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on SUSTAIN-AI-REG comes into being after several years (2016 - 2022) of research and teaching activities intended to contribute to improving the effectiveness of law and regulation, and bring citizens and firms closer to public authorities. Such a path started in 2016 with the awarding of a Jean Monnet Module, then developed in the Jean Monnet Chair on EU Approach to Better Regulation from 2019.

The focus has been on key European tools of Better Regulation (impact assessment, regulatory burden measurement, ex-post evaluation, consultation), and on the emerging methods to support the regulation effectiveness, from behavioural experiments to artificial intelligence..

The Module and the Chair have formed together around 600 students (through the courses “EU Approach to Better Regulation” and “Better Regulation Advanced”) and professionals (“Alta formazione professionale sulla qualità della regolazione”). Moreover, more than 100 of them had the opportunity to implement their knowledge on better regulation in the field, thanks to internship agreements with top-level institutions involved in better regulation (regulator, regulated firm or think tank). Besides, the Chair always continues to mentor its alumni with advice and new opportunities to further their careers.

The Centre explores the role of artificial intelligence in the regulatory cycle and aims to raise awareness of its environmental impacts and to provide public authorities with criteria to adopt sustainable AI.

Specifically, it seeks to:

identify how AI can support regulators and enforcement authorities while assessing the risks it poses to the rule of law and the environment;
develop a methodology for evaluating the environmental impact of AI applications and infrastructures; and
establish sustainability criteria for the in-house development and outsourcing of AI in regulator contexts.