Research projects

Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowships

Edinburgh Law School has a distinguished record of Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowships. Current award holders include Professor Niamh Nic Shuibhne, Professor Jo Shaw and Professor Neil Walker.

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Artificial Intelligence and the International Rule of Law

The Artificial Intelligence and the International Rule of Law Workshop Series explores fundamental questions about the relationship between international legal obligations and emerging applications of AI that bear upon the laws of war, human rights and refugee law.

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Bell and Beyond: The Development of Commercial Law in Scotland

Bell and Beyond traces the development of commercial law in Scotland from the time that George Joseph Bell assumed the Chair of Scots Law at Edinburgh Law School in 1822 to the present day.

Centre for the Decentralised Digital Economy (DECaDE)

DECaDE is a 5-year National Research Centre exploring how emerging data technologies could transform our digital economy through decentralised platforms.

Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime

The Edinburgh Study for Youth Transitions and Crime is a research programme that addresses fundamental questions about the causes of criminal and risky behaviours.

Emotional AI in Cities

The Emotional AI in Cities project seeks to answer how UK and Japanese societies can best live with technologies that sense, profile, learn and interact with people’s feelings, emotions and moods.

Ethics review in Scottish universities: how can we do better?

Ethics review in Scottish universities: how can we do better? project aims to investigate the regulatory nature of ethics review in Scottish universities.

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Exploring the legal, ethical, and public administration implications of the gov…

This funded project is aimed at exploring the legal, ethical, and public administration implications of the current Ukrainian legislative agenda in relation to the introduction of a regime for the self-governance of healthcare professions.

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Femtech: how should law and regulation respond?

This research project is motivated by the concern that law and regulation fail to adequately protect users of ‘femtech’.

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Fixing the Future: The Right to Repair and Equal-IoT

'Fixing the Future' is an interdisciplinary project investigating how the lack of repairability in the consumer Internet of Things (IoT) will adversely impact equity, inclusion, and sustainability in the digital economy.

Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute

Horizon explores how challenges, such as trust regarding the use of personal data, can be addressed in the development of new technologies and products that blend physical and digital elements.

Identity by Algorithm

'Identity by Algorithm: Ethical impacts of being recategorised by health AI' applies the critical lens of identity to discussions of AI ethics in the context of big health data. It brings together diverse debates about health technologies, identity, social ontologies human flourishing, and social justice.

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Identity Deception: A Critical History

The project, ‘Identity Deception: A Critical History,’ asks when, if ever, it is appropriate to punish a person who engages in identity deception (pretending to be someone they are not).

Incorporating Human Rights In Scotland

This project brings academic research together with civil society expertise to develop a framework for best practice on human rights incorporation.

infra-Legalities

infra-Legalities rethinks global security law from the ‘infrastructure space’ it is creating, examining how AI-led security, and the data infrastructures that sustain it, are reshaping law and governance, rights and accountability and security decision-making.

Infrastructuring Democracy

The Infrastructuring Democracy project asks how digital infrastructures of democracy might be regulated – and might also shape their own regulation.

The Itaipú Project

The Itaipú Project is a multidisciplinary collaboration that seeks to strengthen institutional links between the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, the National University of Asunción in Paraguay, and the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in Brazil.

Keith Forum on Commonwealth Constitutionalism

The Keith Forum aims to harness the reservoir of comparative ideas from the Commonwealth for current UK constitutional debates, and to benefit Commonwealth states facing similar challenges.

Law and Polity Project

The Law and Polity Project addresses the challenges of how the modern state polity is affected by new legal and political forms.

Law, Virtue and Political Community

This British Academy Global Professorship project argues that the possession of virtue by legal actors is critical to sound legal decision-making and to enhancing community bonds within and beyond the state.

Law, Wealth and Inequality

‘Law, Wealth and Inequality’ is an interdisciplinary research project, which explores the relationship between ‘law’, ‘wealth’ and ‘inequality’, both from a comparative and a historical perspective.

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Legal Transplants and Policy Transfers

The aim of the Legal Transplants project is to explore the political and legislative processes surrounding the development of opt out (or ‘deemed consent’) systems for organ donation in the context of devolution.

Migration in Latin America (MiLA)

Migration in Latin America (MiLA) is a research and knowledge exchange project fostered by the University of Edinburgh in partnership with Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).

MobilitySafe

The MobilitySafe project aims to develop a map-based tool to help individuals navigate cities in times of pandemic and conflict.

Coronavirus, Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives

Policing the Pandemic

The Policing the Pandemic project investigates the role of police enforcement in securing compliance with the Health Protection Regulations in Scotland, and the factors associated with non-compliance.

Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform

PeaceRep re-thinks peace and transition processes in light of changing conflict dynamics, changing demands of inclusion, and changes in patterns of global intervention in conflict and peace/mediation/transition management processes.

Protection in the Law of Expulsion and Aid in Scotland

The Protection in the Law of Expulsion and Aid in Scotland (PLEAS) project aims to map out the provisions of UK and Scots law that could trigger the expulsion of non-British nationals from the country.

Public Health, Ethics and Law Research Network

This aim of the Public Health, Ethics and Law Research Network (PHELN) is to promote cross-disciplinary research in public health, ethics and law in the UK and Ireland.

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Reversing the Gaze: Towards Post-Comparative Area Studies

'Reversing the Gaze’ is a £2.1 million, four-year project that studies political phenomena in Europe through concepts developed in and from the Global South.

Saving our Seas through Law

The Saving our Seas through Law (SOS-Law) project aims to explore how the legal framework can be better used or reformed in order to achieve enhanced protection of marine ecosystems.

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Scottish Feminist Judgments Project

The Scottish Feminist Judgments Project re-imagines the processes and outcomes of judging from feminist perspectives.

Smart Regulation of Antibiotic Use in India

This project, ‘Smart regulation of antibiotic use in India: Understanding, innovating and improving compliance,’ aims to better understand the various problems surrounding the regulation of antimicrobial resistance containment in India.

Taming The Dark Energy of EU Law

Funded by a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant, this project will aims to retune the relationship between the written and unwritten dimensions of EU constitutional law.

Tech-Sex: Law, Sex and Technologies

The Tech-Sex project aims to enhance knowledge and explore important implications of new digital, mechanical and medical technologies that are transforming our sexual lives.

Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Governance and Regulation

The Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS) programme brings together research communities and key stakeholders to drive forward cross-disciplinary, fundamental research to ensure that autonomous systems are safe, reliable, resilient, ethical and trusted.

UK-REACH

UK-REACH is an interdisciplinary, multi-centre study that aims to investigate if, how, and why ethnicity affects COVID-19 outcomes in healthcare workers.

Understanding Inequalities

Understanding Inequalities is an ESRC-funded project aiming to provide robust research evidence to help reduce inequalities in Scottish society and beyond.

Vulnerability and Justice in Global Health Emergencies

This project, ‘Vulnerability and justice in global health emergency regulation: developing future ethical models’, looks at crises that affect health and are of international concern.

When Borders Change

The 'When Borders Change: Public Health, Trade and the Role of Law in the UK and Ireland' project aims to understand the shifting boundaries of the post-Brexit relationship between public health, trade and the law in the UK and Ireland.

Completed research projects

Edinburgh Law School has an enduring legacy of diverse and world-leading research projects.

Explore our completed research projects

Research