Regulating eco-innovation in the European Union

This article develops a framework to guide the EU in the choice of legal form for the regulation of eco-innovation. The framework distinguishes between uncertain and risky applications of eco-innovation. An uncertain eco-innovation, which poses an incalculable risk, is more difficult to regulate because the EU legislator needs to accumulate information in order to plug gaps in knowledge. In that context, directives are superior to regulations because they are conducive to experimentation and information accumulation. Risky eco-innovations, conversely, should be covered by regulations; otherwise, the cost of legal heterogeneity would outweigh the benefits of information accumulation. We also show that there are ways of conceptualising the choice between directives and regulations that are more productive than the sovereignty-versus-competition model that predominates in current legal thinking.</p

Ex ante regulation in an era of fast-paced innovation - connecting the time and locus of regulation

The connection between the timing and the locus of a regulatory intervention should excite considerable interest in the study of ex ante regulation. To illustrate this argument,we draw on the example of the precautionary principle. It emerges that timing is important when legislation is being drafted. However, time is not the only relevant variable in decision-making. When it is ripe for application, both temporal and locus-of-regulation considerations matter. For instance, a question that policymakers should address is when it isthe right time to regulate new or emerging technologies and at which governance level. Addressing such questions would allow them to strike a balance between facilitatingthe development of new technologies and addressing the legitimate concerns of their citizens

Ex ante regulation in an era of fast-paced innovation - connecting the time and locus of regulation

The connection between the timing and the locus of a regulatory intervention should excite considerable interest in the study of ex ante regulation. To illustrate this argument,we draw on the example of the precautionary principle. It emerges that timing is important when legislation is being drafted. However, time is not the only relevant variable in decision-making. When it is ripe for application, both temporal and locus-of-regulation considerations matter. For instance, a question that policymakers should address is when it isthe right time to regulate new or emerging technologies and at which governance level. Addressing such questions would allow them to strike a balance between facilitatingthe development of new technologies and addressing the legitimate concerns of their citizens

Does increasing public trust in the EU's institutions undermine support for national institutions?

Several studies have identified a link between the public’s trust in national institutions and their trust in the EU’s institutions. Yet the effect of this link is unclear, with some studies finding that an increase in trust in national institutions boosts trust in the EU’s institutions, and other studies identifying the opposite relationship. Drawing on a new study, Goran Dominioni, Alberto Quintavalla, and Alessandro Romano explain that the relationship between trust in national and EU institutions is bilateral, almost always asymmetric, and that spillover effects change over time

Recovering pyramid WS gain in non-common path aberration correction mode via deformable lens

It is by now well known that pyramid based wavefront sensors, once in closed loop, have the capability to improve more and more the gain as the reference natural star image size is getting smaller on the pyramid pin. Especially in extreme adaptive optics applications, in order to correct the non-common path aberrations between the scientific and sensing channel, it is common use to inject a certain amount of offset wavefront deformation into the DM(s), departing at the same time the pyramid from the optimal working condition. In this paper we elaborate on the possibility to correct the low order non-common path aberrations at the pyramid wavefront sensor level by means of an adaptive refractive lens placed on the optical path before the pyramid itself, allowing the mitigation of the gain loss