Legal research at UTS Law had its beginnings in 1975 with the establishment of the Faculty of Law at the NSW Institute of Technology. Like the Faculty’s founding mission, its research had a practical ethos. Like its academics, professional staff and students, it was diverse, dynamic and international.
The seminal research of our founding Dean, Professor Geoffrey Bartholomew, drove the development of legal literature and history in Singapore and Malaysia and the establishment of their respective legal systems. Our most recent past Dean, Professor Jill McKeough is a leading intellectual property scholar. She was Australian Law Reform Commissioner heading the Commonwealth’s Inquiry into Copyright in the Digital Economy.
The research excellence and leadership of UTS Law academics and students has been recognised with the receipt of highly competitive, prestigious international grants. For example, in 1999, Kirsten Edwards was awarded the Fulbright scholarship to study a Master of Laws at Yale University. On her return to UTS Kirsten established the UTS Innocence Project. In 2008, UTS Law hosted Professor Nancy Poliakoff of American University, Washington DC on an incoming Fulbright fellowship.
The UTS Law Faculty enrolled its first Higher Degree Research students two decades after its foundation. The first Master of Laws was conferred in 1991. Professor Stephen Hall of Chinese University of Hong Kong graduated with First Class Honours in the first cohort. Justice Tricia Kavanagh of the Industrial Relations Commission of NSW, one of our first NSWIT Law graduates was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy in 1998.
Today, the Law Faculty is enriched with a flourishing Higher Degree Research program. The Quentin Bryce Doctoral Scholarships were inaugurated in 2011 with the enrolment of its first four recipients, David Carter, Elyse Methven, Rachel Bolton (nee Young) and Anthea Vogl. The first Quentin Bryce Scholars completed their doctoral studies in 2015.
UTS Law Research was established in 2008 within the Faculty of Law as a UTS Research Strength with Professor Lesley Hitchens as Director, 34 academic members, and one part-time employee.
In Commonwealth’s ERA 2018, UTS Law was assessed as ‘above world class’. This result eclipses more-established law schools and is well above the national average of 3.4 for the Law discipline (FOR18).
Today UTS Law Research is led by Distinguished Professor Shaunnagh Dorsett and a team of four professional staff. Its membership includes academics drawn from leading Australian and international law schools, Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellows and Quentin Bryce Scholars.