Posted on 20 June 2019
Professor Hans W. Micklitz, Professor of Economic Law in the Law Department, will retire this summer after 12 years at the EUI.
Since joining the EUI as Professor of Law in 2007, Prof. Micklitz has served as Director of Graduate Studies from 2009-2012 and Head of the Law Department from 2012-2014.
Outside of the EUI, Prof. Micklitz has also worked as Head of the Advisory Board of the Max-Planck-Institute for Innovation and Competition, Jean Monnet Chair of European Economic Law at the Universities of Bamberg/Erlangen for Civil Law, and Head of the Institute of European and Consumer Law, Bamberg, in addition to multiple visiting professorships and consultancies in institutions across Europe and the USA.
He has received multiple prizes, including Finland's Distinguished Professor of the Academy of Science. He was also the recipient of an ERC Grant for his project European Regulatory Private Law, for which he served as Director of Research from 2011-2016.
Prof. Micklitz has published prolifically throughout his career, authoring books such as European Economic Law with Stephen Weatherill (Farnham: Ashgate, 1997), The Politics of Judicial Cooperation in the EU (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), and The Politics of Justice in EU Private Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
Some of Prof. Micklitz’s former students came together in early June to celebrate his career with a collection of essays written in his honour. Drs. Keiva Carr and Marija Bartl spoke of him in glowing terms in their essay: “Hans Micklitz is, on all accounts, a renaissance scholar. Versed in scholarship across geographies, times and disciplines, with academic productivity that few can match. Despite his many pursuits, Hans has always been the most generous and committed supervisor. He has motivated his students to read broadly, think deeply and be ambitious in their scholarship.”
The collection of papers for Prof. Micklitz was celebrated at a book launch held at the EUI’s Villa Salviati. Dr. Barend Van Leeuwen, one of Prof. Micklitz’s former students and now Assistant Professor in EU Law at Durham University, who attended the event, said: "As a supervisor, Hans has a keen eye for the needs of the individual researcher. He always manages to find the right balance between freedom and security, between flexibility and responsibility, between confidence and challenge. Most importantly, Hans is always available to listen, to engage in a discussion and to find a forward. Above all, Hans has built a community of researchers.”