Graduate Student Opportunities

Oxford Graduate Students

Although the Institute does not admit or affiliate graduate students directly, there are opportunities which may assist graduate students of the Oxford Law Faculty in their research, especially those working in areas of European and/or comparative law.

A number of visiting schemes are available to which Oxford graduate research students are welcome to apply. These include:

All graduate students are very welcome to take part in events organised by the Institute, which will be advertised on the Faculty's weekly events email. In particular, the Faculty's Comparative Law Discussion Group, the EU Law Discussion Group, the Competition Law and Policy Discussion Group, the Chinese Law Discussion Group and the South Asian Law Discussion Group are run under the auspices of the Institute. The Institute also organises a series of Lunchtime Seminars at which our staff and visitors regularly present their work.

The Institute (and through it the Law Faculty) is a member of the British Association of Comparative Law (BACL), which runs an annual Postgraduate Workshop on Comparative Law. This is typically a 2-day roundtable event designed for doctoral students working on theses in the field of comparative legal studies. In 2016 the workshop was held at the Institute. Further information can be found on the BACL website.

MFO Visiting Students

The Institute’s agreement with the Maison Française d’Oxford (MFO) facilitates the integration into the University of postgraduate students from French higher education establishments who spend a year at Oxford undertaking legal research as part of their doctoral studies. Since the programme was established in 2013, the Institute has typically welcomed one or two doctoral students every year from universities throughout France. In addition to conducting research for their project in Oxford, they have been involved in many activities of the Institute including coaching Oxford teams for the annual French Law Moot.

Information about the scheme can be obtained through the website of the MFO. Applications or the following academic year are normally due in around March/April, with decisions being made in May.

Visiting Graduate Students

The Institute does not run a general scheme for visiting graduate students. Doctoral students of other universities who wish to spend a period between one and three terms in Oxford, under the supervision of a member of the Oxford Law Faculty, should apply to the University to be admitted as a Recognised Student.

In very exceptional circumstances, the Institute is sometimes able to offer an association to doctoral students whose research into aspects of European or comparative law is of such a nature that there are specific, compelling reasons for attracting the project to the Institute and formally affiliating it there. Differently to the general Recognised Student programme, no supervision will be offered in such a case, and no designated workspace can usually be made available at the Institute itself. Supervisors who believe that an exceptional case can be made out for the doctoral student should contact the IECL Administrator in the first instance. Applications cannot be accepted from doctoral students themselves.

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