Giving Month | Building NLSIU’s Teaching and Research Capacity
February 4, 2022
Giving Month is an initiative to provide the alumni community updates on key initiatives at NLSIU, and invite their support in jointly achieving the University’s development goals.
Each week of February will delve deeper on a separate focus area for the University’s development. This week’s focus is Research and Teaching at NLSIU. To donate to research & teaching initiatives at NLSIU, please click here.
For years, the National Law School of India University has been the frontrunner in legal education and academics. Today, as the study of law evolves into a combination of education and research, NLSIU is taking constructive steps to increase its research capacity and bolster the process of aligning academic and research outputs at the University. Recent developments on this front include faculty hiring and several research projects which are underway. The University looks forward to having a critical mass of professors and active full-time researchers on campus.
Faculty Development
With the expansion in the intake for the B.A. LL.B. (Hons) programme, and the introduction of the 3-year LL.B. (Hons.) programme, the number of students on campus will increase steadily over the coming years. To maintain its 15:1 student-to-teacher ratio, the University has embarked on a timely recruitment programme for faculty across courses in law and social sciences.
“There is a significant need for a diverse set of faculty. While we are looking at faculty who are committed teachers, we are equally interested in members who will contribute to our research portfolios. Therefore, we are keen on bringing in scholars whose teaching and research interests are aligned,” NLSIU Registrar Dr Nigam Nuggehalli said.
The University will hire up to 20 faculty members in the first half of 2022, to strengthen the academic programmes as well as head various projects, including empirical research at the University. We plan to advance the capacity of all faculty members, through systematic in-house programmes for faculty development, such as weekly faculty seminars to discuss in-progress papers and re-organisation of departments and teams under the aegis of senior or Chair professors.
Academic Fellowship Programme
NLSIU’s two-year Academic Fellowship programme is open to graduates and post-graduates from law, social sciences, humanities and allied fields, who are preparing to enter law practice or academic careers in law, public policy or the social sciences. The University is looking to onboard around 20 Academic Fellows in its first intake in the first quarter of 2022. This is an opportunity for the researchers to hone their research skills and contribute to ongoing projects at the University.
Dr Nigam said, “As a University, we place as much emphasis on knowledge creation as knowledge dissemination. We want to foster a culture of research and innovation in legal studies, and Academic Fellows are integral to that. With this programme, we hope to bring in a new set of enthusiastic and driven researchers who can help the University grow in its research output, as well as assist in the delivery of academic programmes.”
While candidates are being recruited across disciplines, the University has identified focus areas, for academic fellows to align their contribution and output:
- Law and Health: Exploring and evaluating different models and approaches globally, and assessing their suitability for different Indian contexts.
- Law, Tech and Society: Delving into the legal and ethical concerns and challenges in utilizing new technologies in economic, governmental and social activities involving human interactions with these technologies.
- Private Law: Assisting the government and regulators on fundamental questions on private law obligations arising out of contract, tort, laws governing property and corporations.
- Legal System Reform: Shedding light on challenges faced by the justice system through some relatively overlooked approaches in the research on justice reform.
- Criminal Justice: Conducting research that draws on large-scale field interventions, and original empirical research in areas such as pre-trial detention, gender-based violence, arrest and bail.
This expansion in the research capacity of the University is set to streamline and raise the overall intellectual and academic output of NLSIU as it anchors a wider set of inter-disciplinary research projects. Increasing collaboration between faculty and researchers will feed into the rigour of NLSIU’s academic programmes.
Donate to strengthen research & teaching at NLSIU by clicking here.