Edinburgh Law School celebrates research and impact with annual showcase event
Wed 18 June 2025
Edinburgh Law School hosted its annual Research and Impact Celebration this month, bringing together staff, students, and alumni to showcase the breadth of our research and impact activities. This year’s event focused on the theme of ideas that shape, inspire, and underpin our legal and criminological research and its real-world impact.
The event included two panel discussions, offering insights into the research process and its broader influence. Professor Niamh Nic Shuibhne, Dr Morshed Mannan and Dr Alistair Henry led the first panel, exploring how ideas for research develop. The second panel, featuring Professor Susan McVie, Dr Katy McMillan and Dr Michael Picard, discussed how to progress ideas for impact.
A highlight of the event was the PhD research presentations. The School’s second year PhD students each presented either a poster or a three-minute thesis (3MT), which challenged them to explain their research project in a succinct and accessible form. Attendees had the opportunity to hear about PhD research projects ranging from legal frameworks in space activity to behavioural insights into the night-time economy. It was excellent to hear about the diverse range of PhD projects underway in the School but also to see how much the students were encouraging and supporting each other.
Congratulations to Rania Djojosugito, who won the Three Minute Thesis competition, with Huw Sherrard, Kagan Surucu and Chloe Young as runners-up. Congratulations to Yong Jin Kim who took first prize in the poster competition, with Tianqi Bias runner-up.
Professor Neil Walker, Director of Research, said: “New ideas are the lifeblood of research in any field, and that certainly includes legal research. The Celebration Day was a rare opportunity to think about and illustrate what that means at postgraduate level and beyond, and across the widest range of our expertise and interests. It was great to see the whole School come together as a single research community to share their experiences and discuss common challenges.”
The Celebration marked the end of Dr Kasey McCall-Smith’s role as Director of Postgraduate Research and Dr Annie Sorbie’s role as Director of Knowledge Exchange and Impact. It also offered a fitting occasion to mark the retirement of two much valued colleagues; Professor Richard Sparks, who has held the Chair of Criminology at the School since 2004, and Dr Bob Lane, who has taught European Law at Edinburgh since 1983.
Learn more about our research