Call for Papers
About the Conference
Contemporary regulatory environments are increasingly characterized by complex constellations of interacting actors, institutions, and governance mechanisms. Law no longer operates solely through hierarchical state institutions and (two party) relationships between actors, but through multi-actor networks.
In several disciplines, such constellations are analyzed through the concept of ecosystems, which highlights interdependence, coordination, and co-evolution among actors. While ecosystem perspectives have become influential in fields such as innovation studies, management, and economic geography, they have only rarely been systematically integrated into legal scholarship.
This conference aims to explore how ecosystem thinking can advance legal research. It seeks to develop conceptual and methodological approaches for studying law within complex institutional environments, and to examine how law both shapes and is shaped by different types of ecosystems.
Bringing together legal scholars and interdisciplinary researchers, the conference aims to contribute to the development of a research agenda on legal ecosystems.
Conference Themes
The conference will explore 4 thematic areas
(i) Conceptualizing Legal Ecosystems, to explore the foundations of a legal ecosystem perspective through topics like defining legal ecosystems; ecosystem actors, institutions, and governance structures; ecosystem boundaries and legal infrastructures; interactions between public and private regulation; institutional complementarities and legal coordination; and the role of law in shaping ecosystem dynamics.
(ii) Methods for Studying Legal Ecosystems to explore new empirical and interdisciplinary approaches to studying law in complex governance systems through topics like empirical legal studies of ecosystems; stakeholder participation; network analysis of legal actors and institutions; mapping regulatory networks; mixed doctrinal–empirical approaches; interdisciplinary research designs; and data-driven approaches to legal ecosystems.
(iii) Cross-cutting Perspectives on Legal Ecosystems, which bring together conceptual and methodological approaches to examine how legal ecosystems can be designed, evaluated, and governed in practice, including questions of accessibility, inclusion, and system-level coordination
(iv) Sectoral ecosystems studies, such as platform and digital ecosystems (applying ecosystem perspectives to digitally mediated environments where platforms structure interactions, governance, and regulatory power); mobility ecosystems (examining how legal and governance dynamics unfold within increasingly integrated and data-driven mobility systems); logistics and supply chain ecosystems (analysing how law operates within interconnected logistics networks characterised by coordination across multiple actors); global value chain ecosystems and transnational regulation (examining legal coordination and fragmentation in global value chain ecosystems, corporate sustainability and the transformation of global value chain ecosystems, geopolitics, industry initiatives, and crisis governance in global value chain ecosystems) and work and labour ecosystems, including gig and platform work (exploring how labour relations are shaped within complex, multi-actor environments involving platforms and hybrid work arrangements);
Other sectoral ecosystems and approaches are also welcome.
Junior Scholars Workshop
There will be opportunity for a limited number of early-career researchers (PhDs and Postdocs) to participate in a pre-conference workshop dedicated to developing research projects on legal ecosystems as well as to strengthening the conceptual and methodological framing of ongoing research through an ecosystem perspective.
Participants will receive feedback from peers and senior scholars on the conceptual framing, research design, methodological approaches, and other aspects of their draft projects.
Submission Information
We welcome submissions in the form of extended abstracts (1,000–1,500 words). Submissions should clearly indicate how the paper contributes to the study of legal ecosystems and contain the name, affiliation(s), position, and email address of author(s).
Participants interested in the Junior Scholars Workshop should submit their research project of not more than 5 pages. The submission should include name, affiliation(s), position, and email address of author(s)
It is possible to participate both in the Junior Scholars Workshop and in the conference or in just either of them.
Submission email: Wouter.verheyen@uantwerpen.be
Important Dates
Submission deadline: June 30, 2026
Notification of acceptance: July 9, 2026
Conference: 12–14 October, 2026