Law and Social Change at Birkbeck

Our full-time MPhil/PhD programme in Law and Social Change is offered under an international consortium arrangement led by the University of Roma Tre. The programme provides the opportunity to obtain a double doctoral qualification at Birkbeck and at the University of Roma Tre, spending one year of your doctoral research programme at the University of Roma Tre. You will also participate in annual consortium activities, involving students and academic staff from the other four universities that are members of the consortium: University College Dublin, University of Lyon 2, University of Luxembourg and the University of Vilnius. Entry into this programme is limited to a maximum of three students per year for each of the consortium members.

An MPhil/PhD is an advanced postgraduate research degree that requires original research and the submission of a substantial dissertation of 60,000 to 100,000 words. MPhil/PhD researchers in law at Birkbeck and at the University of Roma Tre benefit from the supervision of internationally renowned experts, classes in legal theory and research and presentation skills, seminars and extensive library facilities. The unifying themes of our research are social and legal theory and interdisciplinary study.

We also offer financial assistance for conference attendance, comprehensive independent monitoring of each student's yearly progress, and postgraduate student representation on our board. Ours is a vibrant community of researchers that organises a series of workshops, reading groups and a work-in-progress group, as well as frequent social events.

This international doctoral programme aims at studying and better understanding the impact of social changes arising from the increasing exposure of national legal systems to transnational influences. The main focus of the programme is on the governance of transnational markets and on the interplay between transnational regulation and European law. Increases in global trade and investment flows, the opening of new markets, the development of new technologies (in particular ICTs and biotechnologies), have led in many areas to significant shifts in the axis of regulation: from the domestic to the transnational; from the public to the private; from the formal to the informal. Such developments in the regulatory arena raise a set of important questions, which deserve careful analysis. They may be grouped along two major dimensions: (a) phenomenology, features, and consequences of transnational private and public regulation; and (b) impact of transnational regulation on national legal systems.

The research conducted as part of this programme will contribute to a deeper understanding of transnational regulation and assess its impact on the development of national and European law. The programme attributes great importance to the cultural dimension of legal phenomena, understanding the law as part of a tradition. You should, therefore, be capable of engaging in synchronic and diachronic comparisons. Interdisciplinary approaches are welcomed.

At Birkbeck, you are initially registered on an MPhil and you upgrade to a PhD after satisfactory progress in the first year.