The Institute for Studies on Federalism and Regionalism pursues legal studies and applied research on federal, regional and governmental trends in Europe and throughout the world. The scientific approach is mostly based on legal comparison as a method of analysis of governance in multi-layered systems.

The overall tendency towards decentralization is a crucial element of European integration, balancing the evolution of a supranational and integrated form of government.

Hierarchy in public law systems worldwide, in both the domestic and international context, loses importance in favor of reticular legal integration as a consequence of the modern processes in the vertical division of powers. For example, the recent South African Constitution expresses this change clearly and for the first time by speaking of 'spheres' instead of 'levels of government'. This trend towards a multi-sphere structure of vertical division of powers is the main research interest of the Institute. 

The Institute seeks to become a transnational point of reference for studies on federalism and regionalism by carrying out research projects and by offering scholarly works, courses, conferences and expertise to the scientific and political debate on these questions.

Geographically located in between the 'mature' federal systems of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and the Italian "federation in the making", the Institute is a crossroads for different approaches of regionalism and federalism and has thus always paid particular attention to cross-boarder cooperation and the external powers of sub-national entities.

In addition, the Institute is studying the nucleus of rules, processes and practices that influence the exercise of powers at European Level. Recently, in particular, regionalism has gained greater importance in the emerging European constitutional space as it is no longer a phenomenon confined merely to the domestic organization of states. Hence, not only states and community institutions, but regional and local communities, the organized society, and even individual citizens are recognized as actors of European governance. The location of the Institute within a territory of well-established, far-reaching and asymmetrical autonomy provides a privileged position to observe and study such phenomena.