Univ.-Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Christiane Wendehorst, LL.M. (Cantab.)

Professor of Law
Co-Head of the Department of Innovation and Digitalisation in Law
Scientific Director of the European Law Institute
Head of the Research Centre for European Legal Development and Private Law Reform

Schottenbastei 10-16 (Juridicum)
1010 Vienna

T: +43-1-4277-34820
E: christiane.wendehorst@univie.ac.at

Consultation hour

To make an appointment please contact wendehorst.secretariat@univie.ac.at.

Christiane Wendehorst has been Professor of Civil Law at the University of Vienna since 2008, Co-Head of the Department of Innovation and Digitalisation in Law. She is, among other things, a founding member, past President (2017-2021) and since 2022 Scientific Director of the European Law Institute (ELI). She is President of the Humanities and Social Sciences Division of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) as well as Vice-President of the Austrian Jurists' Association (ÖJT). She is also an elected member of the Academia Europea (AE), the International Academy for Comparative Law (IACL) and the American Law Institute (ALI). In 2024, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Law at the University of Bern and in 2025 the Austrian Decoration of Honour for Science and Art.

Before moving to Vienna, she held professorships in Göttingen (1999-2008) and Greifswald (1998-1999) and was managing director of the Sino-German Institute of Legal Studies (2000-2008).

Her current research focuses on the legal aspects of digitalisation and she has acted as an expert for the European Commission, the European Parliament, the German Federal Government, the ELI and the ALI. From 2018-2019, she co-chaired the Data Ethics Commission of the German Federal Government and since 2020, she has been an EU-nominated expert of the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI). She is currently working on topics such as the use of AI in the contractual context and the adaptation of data protection law to the challenges posed by AI and the data economy.