The School of Law conducts research in a wide range of legal and socio-legal fields. 90 per cent of our research was recognised as of international quality in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, and 55 per cent was internationally excellent or world leading. As we submitted the work of 43 full time equivalent members of staff, this attests to wide ranging research capability in Bristol Law School. The School has a thriving body of research students, and welcomes applications from visiting researchers who wish to spend time at Bristol. The School has a strong international reputation for collaborative research.
The staff of the School of Law have interests in all major areas of legal research; details of individual staff interests, publications and current projects can be found from the Staff List section. There are also clusters of particularly strong areas where a number of staff are involved. Strong support is given internally to encouraging staff research excellence, in particular through the School’s policy of granting one year in four research leave to research active staff and in providing funding for research expenses, for example attendance at international conferences.
The School has three research centres:
The School also has significant and diverse concentrations of expertise in the following areas:
Members of the School are also part of interdisciplinary research centres and research themes in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law; in particular the Centre for Market and Public Organisation, the University of Bristol Human Rights Research Group, and the Faculty research theme on Governance and Regulation.
The School of Law has a portfolio of externally-funded research covering a wide range of legal and socio-legal themes. Recent examples include funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for the projects ‘Effectiveness of the National Institutions under the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on Torture’ and ‘The Changing Nature of Religious Rights in International Law’; from the Economic and Social Research Council for ‘Decentred Regulation in E-Commerce’, from the European Commission FP6 Programme for ‘Reflexive Governance in the Public Interest’ in relation to services of general interest and corporate governance, from the Lord Chancellor’s Department for ‘Experience of Magistrates from Ethnic Minority Backgrounds’ and from the Legal Services Commission for ‘Family Advice and Information Networks'.
The School of Law welcomes applications from prospective students in any legal discipline where supervision can be offered. Details about applications can be found from the Postgraduate Degrees (Research Degrees) section. Research students are required to undertake appropriate training to acquire the necessary skills to become successful researchers; for socio-legal students this will be through undertaking the MSc in Socio-Legal Studies, which is recognised by the ESRC and for which ESRC Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) awards are available. DTC interdisciplinary streams are also available in respect of doctoral study at the University of Bristol in the fields of ‘Global Political Economy’, ‘Security, Conflict and Justice’, ‘Environment, Energy and Resilience’ and ‘Heath and Well-being’. See for further details, the Research Awards and Scholarships page.
For other areas of legal study the School arranges its own training provision in conjunction with that offered elsewhere in the Faculty and the University; our framework of research training has been recognised by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as in compliance with its framework of research training requirements for doctoral students. Students have the benefit of dedicated facilities in the School and financial support for travel and conferences. Details of current research student projects are available from Research Students section.
Visiting researchers are welcome to join the School for a short period to undertake work which can best be done at Bristol. These applications are highly competitive and much weight is placed on the quality of the research proposal submitted; details of how to apply are available from the Visiting Researchers section.
The School has a regular seminar series open to staff and research students at which visiting speakers, or our own staff and students, discuss their work. Individual research centres and projects also organise conferences for the wider dissemination of their work; forthcoming examples can be found in the Staff Seminars and Conferences sections.
Research management in the School is undertaken by the School’s Research Director (currently Professor Richard Young) and the Research and Staffing Committee. At Faculty level research is overseen by the Faculty Research Strategy Committee and ultimately by the University Research Committee. At Faculty level research is overseen by the Faculty Research Strategy Committee and ultimately by the University Research Committee.