SCIP Showcases Research

Law and Innovation Symposium Brings Best and Brightest

-By Gilien Silsby

- Photos by Maria Iacobo

USC Law Prof. Jonathan Barnett

Some of Southern California’s brightest and most innovative scholars came together recently to share cutting-edge research funded by grants from USC Law’s Southern California Innovation Project.

The Law and Innovation Symposium showcased research on the impact on innovation of employment law, finance and securities regulation, the structure of networks, contracts, and the performance and regulation of legal markets.

Held on March 5 at USC Gould School of Law, researchers from USC, University of San Diego Law School and UC San Diego, who received SCIP grants, presented their papers.  Participants from USC included law school faculty, as well as faculty from the Marshall School, Political Science, SPPD, Economics and Engineering.

“This was a really impressive group of people and papers.  Collectively, together with great discussion with participants from across the USC campus, I think we really made some advances in this important area of the relationship between law and innovation.,” said Gillian Hadfield, director of SCIP and a USC Law professor.

Scholars who may appear to have different goals and backgrounds are collaborating more and more.

“It’s a real trend in academia as well as in the legal world,” said Hadfield.

Twelve scholars presented their work, including Jonathan Barnett, James Spindler and Nina Walton, all of USC Law. Iva Bozovic, a postdoctoral fellow with SCIP, presented research undertaken with Hadfield and Nick Weller of USC’s Political Science department presented joint work conducted with Mathew McCubbins, also of USC Law. 

Funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the three-year $675,000 grant to create SCIP was intended to move the study of the relationship between law and innovation beyond intellectual property law.

The Southern California Innovation Project was formed in 2007 as an interdisciplinary center designed to work closely with business and legal firms.