Professor Alexandra Braun has been appointed as a Fellow of the Accademia delle Scienze di Torino

The Accademia delle Scienze di Torino (Torino Academy of Sciences) was founded in 1783 and brings together scholars from all disciplines within two branches: i) humanities, history and philology, and ii) physical, mathematical and natural sciences. The Academy’s main purpose is to promote the circulation of knowledge and, in particular, to “contribute to the scientific progress by promoting research and overseeing the publication of its findings, to contribute to the dissemination of knowledge through congresses, conferences, seminars, lectures and any other means deemed suitable, as well as to provide advice and make recommendations to public institutions and private bodies in its areas of expertise”.

Professor Braun holds the Lord President Reid Chair in Law at the University of Edinburgh. She has broad research interests in the comparative study of law and legal history, and the study of the circulation of legal ideas across legal traditions. She is particularly interested in topics at the intersection of more than one area of law and the liminal spaces that law creates. Her research focuses primarily on the comparative study of succession law, the law of trusts and the law of gifts, and explores the power relationships that underpin these three areas of the law. Professor Braun’s current research focuses especially on how law conceptualised death, the informal aspects of succession planning and of wealth transfers of death, and on the history of trusts. 

Professor Braun’s monograph Claiming a Promised Inheritance: A Comparative Study (published by Oxford University Press in 2022) was selected as one of the “Law Books of the Year’’ in the German law journal JuristenZeitung in 2023.

In commenting on her election Professor Braun said: “I am deeply honoured to have been elected as a Fellow of this prestigious Academy which has such a long-standing history of promoting the production and dissemination of knowledge. I look forward to contributing to the work of the Academy and to further enriching connections between Scotland and Italy.”

Professor Braun will be inaugurated as a Fellow during a ceremony to take place in November 2026.