Committed to reforming legal education and the pursuit of academic excellence, NLSIU places significant emphasis on legal and policy research. Research at NLSIU is primarily carried out through its Centres, Chairs, multi-year research projects, and through individual faculty initiatives. The University’s specialised research centres have been repeatedly called upon to shape laws and improve implementation in intellectual property, child rights, and environmental laws, among many others. The Research Policy of the University is available here.
In 2020, NLSIU identified five focus areas where it will develop new interdisciplinary research clusters:
- Labour and Work
- Climate Justice
- State Capacity and Reform
- Access to Justice & Legal System Reform
- Law, Technology and Society
In Focus
Health Law
Research Entities
Centres
NLSIU’s research centres anchor original and deep research on a broad range of critical areas. They also form nodes through which faculty, students and scholars publicly engage on these issues to inform, educate and help shape reform measures. From human rights and gender equality to leading environmental law research and emerging issues on law and technology, NLSIU’s research centres continue to engage with and impact key societal concerns in every decade.
Chairs
Research Chairs at NLS aim to advance knowledge in their respective fields through original inquiry, promotion of academic debate and dissemination of the latest research and findings. They play a critical role in strengthening the teaching, research and training capabilities of the University as a whole.
Projects & Grants
Continuing our research efforts, NLSIU has entered into a slew of collaborations both at the local and international level. This is in addition to the various projects undertaken by our research Centres and Chairs. We hope to initiate more such collaborations in the coming months and bring together scholars and researchers from across India and around the world to produce innovative and relevant outcomes through our research.
Journals
NLS is home to several interdisciplinary journals that have carried articles by leading scholars and experts over the years, and been cited by the Supreme Court on several occasions. The journals have a commitment to open access and the promotion of legal writing, and occupy an important space in legal academia in India.
Publications
Water Management and Conservation in India Fostering Water Justice: Arguing for Adopting Just Sustainability in Water Governance
June 22, 2025
Co-Author: Sanjay Shenoi P, Doctoral Scholar, School of Law, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru The paper examines adopting the ‘just sustainability’ principle in India’s water governance that can balance human water demands and ecological…
Why no one is talking about counting caste in Kerala
June 13, 2025
The two major political fronts have remained ambivalent about the caste census. This reflects not only fears about electoral arithmetic, but also deeper apprehensions that it could disrupt Kerela’s carefully maintained political stability and expose…
The Improvement Regime: Public Trusts, Real Estates, and India’s Urban Futurities
June 13, 2025
This article suggests that rather than studying the “failures” of the individual trusts to foster sanitary built environments, we should pay attention to the contingent workings of the city trusts that were constitutively designed for…