Edinburgh Law School

Edinburgh Law School was established in 1707. Renowned for our international and interdisciplinary outlook, we have been at the heart of legal education and research for more than 300 years.

• The University of Edinburgh is ranked 22nd in the world (QS World University 2024)
• Edinburgh Law School is ranked 13th in the world for Law (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024 by subject: Law)

Edinburgh Law School - Start Your Extraordinary Journey

Research profile

Edinburgh Law School is renowned for its research excellence. We strive to produce work that has real-world reach and influence. Our postgraduate research body is key to the School’s research activities and we work hard to ensure that our research students are fully engaged with staff and projects across all our legal disciplines.

We have research excellence in a vibrant range of fields, spanning an exciting spectrum of law, socio-legal studies and criminology.

• Ranked 3rd in the UK for law for the quality and breadth of our research. (Research Professional, based on the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF2021)).
• 80% of our research outputs are rated as either world-leading or internationally excellent
• We are recognised as having a 100% world-leading research environment in the REF2021 exercise.
• 92% of our impact case studies have been rated as either world-leading or internationally excellent.

Find out more about our research

Studying your PhD at Edinburgh Law School

A PhD at Edinburgh Law School involves undertaking independent research, culminating in the submission of a 100,000-word thesis, which should be an original piece of work that makes a significant contribution to knowledge in the field of study and contains material worthy of publication.

Find out more about studying for a PhD

The PhD student community

Edinburgh Law School has a diverse and dynamic PhD student body, which is very active in organising academic and social events. The student body also elects the Postgraduate Research Student Board to further the interests of the postgraduate research student community and to serve as a link between research students and the staff in the Law School.

Find out more about our current research students

Training and support

We offer excellent research training and support for PhD students through the Doctoral Research Training Programme.

In the first year of the programme, PhD students take part in a structured course covering legal research methods and transferable skills.

The focus of training in the second year is on supporting the external dissemination of work.

In the third year, all students participate in our Student Presentation Series while they also work on refining their thesis in readiness for submission.

Training and support

As a doctoral student at Edinburgh Law School, you will be assisted by two supervisors who are experts in their field of study and who are carefully chosen to provide you with the best possible support to develop your thesis. PhD supervision is available across an extensive range of legal and criminological subjects.

Funding opportunities

There are a range of funding options available please visit our website for further information.

Visit Edinburgh Law School website