About SECOLA
SECOLA is the Society for European Contract Law. It was founded in 2001 by Hugh Collins, Cesare Massimo Bianca and Stefan Grundmann and registered as an association under German law, having its domicile in Munich. It is a non-profit organization.
The Society has now more than 300 members, whose General Meeting is held in connection with the annual conference.
According to its Statute, the Society is managed by an Executive Board of five members, elected by the General Assembly for a period of two years; the chairman of the Executive Board serves as President of the Society.
The Society promotes the development and knowledge of European contract law including its economic, sociological and intellectual historic relation in theory and in practice. It also promotes education in European contract law. It covers all supranational sources of law, regulations and initiatives concerning problems and aspects of contracts, and in particular the relevant EU law.
The Society devotes itself primarily to international exchange of views, promotes openness towards all concerned groups of professions in theory and in practice, and is concerned with legal doctrine as well as to interdisciplinary, law reform and theory of law considerations applicable to European contract law.
One of the activities of SECOLA consists in the management of an annual conference, aimed to discuss cutting-edge subjects that are at the forefront of both legal theory and the advancement of European contract law. The annual conference is co-organized with a prime education or research institution and hosted in a different European country. It usually takes place over a weekend in mid- to late-June. The General Meeting of SECOLA members determines the organizing theme and the venue of the forthcoming conferences.
Moreover, the Society calls interim conferences and round tables that are focused on topical issues of European contracts law and have therefore a more flexible format and schedule.
In 2005, SECOLA launched the European Review of Contract Law (ERCL) which approaches European Contract Law in a way that reflects the objectives of the Society. Secola and ERCL remain closely linked, sharing (partly-) overlapping responsibilities and a considerable number of subscriptions among members.
The Society also edits the book series European Contract Law and Theory (EUCOLATH), where the books of the annual conferences regularly appear. Published by Intersentia (Antwerp-Cambridge), the series combines dogmatic thinking in comparative and EU law with strong social theory considerations and makes the results of the discussions of leading scholars and practitioners publicly available.
The 'SECOLA family' thus can be viewed as one of cutting-edge research, vibrant discussion, and multi-faceted publications in contract law and its cognate areas.