Socio-legal news
Welcome to the news section of the SLSA website. This area is divided into the following categories:
- Events
- Publications
- Research and funding
- Vacancies
- Consultations, inquiries and surveys
- Other announcements
If you would like an item added to the news section, please contact the
News
SLSA events
Reforming Legal and Policy Responses to Investigating and Prosecuting Sexual Violence, QUB: registration now open
Disability and Rights: The possibilities and limits of rights discourse under neoliberalism, online: registration now open
Law, Drugs, and the Moving Body, Manchester
Other events
Legal Humanities Association: Launch event and inaugural AGM, online
Poverty in Wales, online from the JRF
Telling a Joined-up Story about Homes and Poverty, online from the JRF
WG Hart Workshop 2025 Regulating the Global Movement of Care, IALS, London: programme available
Facing the Future: Justice, National Library of Scotland
To Detain or Punish, The London Archives
Pure Imagination: Stories, Institutions and Law Reform, King's College London
Osgoode Professional Development: SIMple (SIMulated professional learning environment), webinar
Publications
Latest news from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation: June newsletter
Academy of Social Sciences ebulletin: June 2025
Latest from Frontiers of Socio-Legal Studies: Legal workers and the workplaces of law
Leverhulme Trust: June Funding Bulletin
New book: Free Speech Theory: A Radical Restatement by Paul Wragg: 20% discount
Cambridge University Press: OA law collection
Research and funding
British Academy Innovation Fellowships 2025–2026: call for applications
Consultations and surveys
CUP/British Academy Survey on the current state of research publishing
Vacancies
Bloomsbury Academic Writing Fellowship: pre-announcement
Other
Two New Law Commissioners appointed
Vacancies
Bloomsbury Academic Writing Fellowship: pre-announcement
The purpose of the Bloomsbury Academic Writing Fellowship 2025 is to help early career academics get their book idea into a form which is ready for publication. Applications are open to UK-based, up-and-coming authors and researchers who identify as Black, Asian or Ethnically Diverse (BAED). The fellowship offers editorial support and mentorship for one year, £1000 of financial support, practical resources, £250 worth of books from Bloomsbury Academic, plus event and networking opportunities. See website for full details of how to prepare your submission materials. Appplications open on 1 September 2025.
Loughborough Law – up to 10 academic posts
Loughborough Law are looking for lecturers, senior lecturers, readers and professors to develop and implement Loughborough Law in conjunction with the Head of Law, the wider school and university. Up to 10 posts are available to commence during the 2025/26 academic year, although no more than three appointments will be made at professorial level. The majority of posts will be based on the Loughborough campus in the East Midlands. Some may be based at the Loughborough University London campus on the QEII Olympic Park site (where the LLM programme is taught), or may require teaching on both the East Midlands and London campuses. Candidates with any area of focus may apply, but the department has particular needs for specialists bringing critical, socio-legal and interdisciplinary perspectives to public law, property/land law, EU law/transnational legal regimes, company and commercial law, law and technology, environmental law and sports law. Full advertisements and job descriptions are available via the Loughborough website, or jobs.ac.uk. Further information about Loughborough Law can be found on the department website. Closing date: 16 June 2025.
Up to 10 academic posts: Faculty of Law, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Applications are invited for up to 10 academic posts at all levels (lecturer, senior lecturer, associate professor, professor) and in all areas of law, and either teaching & research or education focused roles. See website for details. Closing date: 8 June 2025.
Two Deputy Editors: The Law Teacher
The Law Teacher, the journal of the Association of Law Teachers, invites applications invited for one temporary post and one permanent post. See announcement for details. Closing date: 9 June 2025.
UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships: open for applications
Applications are invited from early career researchers or innovators for funding to support ambitious research and innovation across UKRI’s remit. See website for details. Closing date: 18 June 2025.
Consultations and surveys
CUP/British Academy Survey on the current state of research publishing
Cambridge University Press have commissioned Shift Insight to work on a major research project to explore the current state of research publishing, including open research publishing. Topics include reward and recognition, peer review and the future of open access publishing in journals and books.
This project brings together representatives from across the global community, including funders, librarians, researchers, journal publishing partners, publishers and university leaders. The results from this survey will be collated with feedback from interviews and workshops in a report, which will be publicly available later in 2025, alongside an anonymised dataset.
The British Academy has also been feeding into this work through our Higher Education and Research Policy team, as well as through our Open Access Advisory Group.
The BA and CUP would be extremely grateful if you would consider completing the survey (link below) and also sharing this with your own networks of researchers, to help ensure that the views of our network of learned societies and subject associations, as well as the disciplines they represent are reflected.
The survey is live from 11am on 4 June and closes at 11:30pm BST on Sunday 15 June 2025. To have your say, please click this link and complete the survey.
Government launches consultation on criminal legal aid
The Government has launched a consultation on criminal legal aid aiming to deliver more efficient justice for victims and stabilise the criminal legal aid system by investing millions more in criminal legal aid. See announcement for details and see website for consultation. Closing date: 4 July 2025.
Law Commission Consultation on Aviation Autonomy
The Law Commission is examining the law around autonomous flight to support the safe development of rapidly advancing technology. If you have an interest in or awareness of this area of law, the Commission would like to hear your views. See website for details. Closing date: 18 July 2025.
Other announcements
Two New Law Commissioners appointed
With the appointment of Professor Lisa Webley and Professor Solène Rowan, all four Law Commissioners will be female for the first time in its 60-year history. Both new Commissioners will take up their appointments in September: Lisa as Commissioner for Commercial and Common Law and Solène as Commissioner for Commercial and Common Law. See announcement for futher details.
Lisa is a long-standing member of the SLSA and served as our PGR Rep from 1999 to 2001, and as a member of the then Executive Committee until 2005, working as the SLSA's first email network administrator!
RSVP Law: online seminar-workshops for ECR and precarious employees – call for EOIs and speakers
RSVP Law is a programme of short online seminar-workshops which aim to provide supportive external presentation opportunities, particularly for those in the early stages of their career or precarious employment who may struggle to secure support to engage in external speakership. It's a low pressure, low stakes way to get some presenting experience on their CVs, build their confidence, make new connections and disseminate their work outside their institutions. Organised by Lucinda Bromfield (BPP University) and Cameron Giles (London South Bank University). See webpage to sign up.
Legal Humanities Association launched
A new UK-based learned society, the Legal Humanities Association (LHA), has been set up and is open for membership.
The LHA is a new UK-based learned society, fostering a community dedicated to cultural understandings of law. The LHA is open for inaugural members to join and get involved and help shape the future of the legal humanities academic community.
There will be an online inaugural event online in July 2025, which will include the first General Meeting at which members will vote in the LHA’s first Governance Committee. Any member can put themselves forward to join the Governance Committee or take up any of the officer roles, including Chair.
See website for full details. The Interim Committee invites you to share this call widely.
Academic Mentoring: Professor Didi Herman
Professor Didi Herman has retired from Kent Law School and is now offering confidential help to individuals and universities looking to improve scholarship for publication, mentoring, and the REF. See her website for details.
Professor Herman is now also offering expert consultancy to law schools for advance preparation for REF 2028.