Christiane Wendehorst

Christiane Wendehorst is Professor of Civil Law at the University of Vienna since 2008, Deputy Head of the Institute for Innovation and Digitalization in Law, and Head of the Rudolf Welser Research Centre for the Development of European Private Law. She also serves as Scientific Director of the European Law Institute (ELI) since 2021, President of the Philosophical and Historical Class of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), and Vice President of the Austrian Lawyers' Association (ÖJT). She is a member of the Bioethics Commission at the Federal Chancellery and elected member of Academia Europea (AE), International Academy for Comparative Law (IACL), and American Law Institute (ALI).

Her research focuses on legal challenges of digitalization, including digital content regulation, artificial intelligence, and data economy. She has acted as an expert for the European Commission, European Parliament, German Federal Government, and Global Partnership on AI (GPAI). Key projects include adapting data protection law to AI and examining AI's role in contractual contexts.

Scientific Awards:

• Honorary Doctorate, University of Bern (2024)
• Kardinal-Innitzer-Würdigungspreis
• C. J. Hamson Prize for Comparative Law, Cambridge

Leadership Roles:

• President, Austrian Academy of Sciences Division of Humanities and Social Sciences (since 2022)
• Founding member and former President (2017-2021), ELI