About

As environmental issues, such as climate change and loss of biodiversity have become more salient, there is a growing need to address environmental concerns also in the field of law.

Traditionally, environmental issues have been tackled primarily through means of environmental law, and they have formed a field of law of their own. However, at present, environmental sustainability is not just limited to environmental law, but considered as a noteworthy aspect in other fields of law, too.

The “Shaping, fixing and making markets via IPR: regulating sustainable innovation ecosystems (SHARE)” project is a consortium between the University of Helsinki/Faculty of Law (PIs: Prof. Taina Pihlajarinne/project PI and Prof. Jukka Mähönen/sub-project PI) and the University of Lapland/Faculty of Law (PI: Prof. Rosa Maria Ballardini), funded by the Academy of Finland (1.9.2020-31.8.2024).

In the SHARE project, the role of IP and finance laws in creating incentives for developing and promoting diffusion of sustainable innovations is critically assessed via closely looking into three main stages of the climate change mitigation technologies' innovation ecosystem: 1) financing (market shaping), 2) regulating the process (market fixing), and 3) sharing, licensing and transferring (market making) the innovations. Research is divided into these three stages as three separate work packages:

  1. The first work package focuses on the financing of innovations and is led by the University of Helsinki.
  2. The second work package examines the IPR system and is jointly led by the University of Helsinki and the University of Lapland.
  3. The third work package, led by the University of Lapland, considers deployment, use and transfer of innovations and innovation models.

Overall, SHARE will develop a comprehensive academic study, comprising also of concrete recommendations, for how Europe could lead the transformation towards a more sustainable market economy.