University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK, and is renowned globally for the quality of its teaching and research as a member of the prestigious Russell Group of universities.
The School of Law, established 120 years ago, fosters and promotes research in all major fields of legal study. The School’s academic team is formed by a diverse group of over 70 experts who are dedicated to having a positive impact on society through their research and teachings. The School has an international student body of around 1,600 students coming from over 40 countries.
Established in 1996, the Centre for Business Law and Practice, where DIGOV is co-hosted, is an internationally recognised, leading business law research centre in the UK. It is one of the largest such research centres in the UK with around 30 full-time Faculty members and over 40 PhD students. It also hosts around 200 Masters students every year, studying under one of several different LLM and MSc programs related to business, commerce and trade. The Centre aims to address matters of contemporary concern in business law and regulation using pluralistic perspectives that mix disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches.
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The University of Leeds is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK, and is renowned globally for the quality of its teaching and research. It is a member of the prestigious, research-intensive Russell Group of universities. It is in the top 100 universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2019). It is also a top-10 university for research power in the UK (Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014). It is a member of the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN), which comprises 22 research-intensive institutions spanning six continents. The University has more than 38,000 students, including 9,000 international students from more than 170 countries. It was voted 3rd in the UK in the 2018 Times Higher Education Student Experience Survey. In 2016/17 the University had an annual income of €794m and its annual research income exceeded €154m, of which 15.2% was derived from EU awards.
Read more about the University of Leeds at www.leeds.ac.uk/
The School of Law, established 120 years ago, fosters and promotes research in all major fields of legal study. The School’s academic team is formed by a diverse group of over 70 experts who are dedicated to having a positive impact on society through their research and teachings. The School has an international student body of around 1,600 students coming from over 40 countries. The School was ranked 4th in the UK for research power according to the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014, with 98% of the School’s research assessed to be of ‘internationally excellent’ quality. The School is ranked in the top 10 in the UK for law in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide (2019). In the last five years, the School has had around £10m awards/£7.5m external income in research funding. In the past, the School has hosted a Jean Monnet Chair.
Read more about the School of Law at essl.leeds.ac.uk/law
Established in 1996, the Centre for Business Law and Practice, where DIGOV is co-hosted, is an internationally recognised, leading business law research centre in the UK. It is one of the largest such research centres in the UK with around 30 full-time Faculty members and over 40 PhD students. It also hosts around 200 Masters students every year, studying under one of several different LLM and MsC programs related to business, commerce and trade. The Centre aims to address matters of contemporary concern in business law and regulation using pluralistic perspectives that mix disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches. It strives for high quality research outputs that have a broader societal impact. The Centre’s research focuses around the areas of corporate and financial law; contract, consumer and commercial law; competition, regulation and tax; and international trade law. Centre members not only conduct research in numerous areas of EU law such as tax, competition, insolvency, regulation, data and privacy, environmental law, law and technology, etc., but they also regularly supervise LLM and PhD theses in these areas. Members’ research is regularly cited by courts and referenced by policy-makers. Staff members provide their expertise to law firms, global corporations, accounting bodies, national law reform bodies and government departments in various countries, and international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Transparency International, European Commission, European and Economic Social Committee, International Competition Network, OECD, and others. The Centre is also well-networked internationally with strong connections, which include the Centre for Economic Law Vrije Universiteit of Brussels; Erasmus University Rotterdam; the European Academic Network of VAT; the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law, National University of Jodphur; University of Muenster; Catholic University of Leuven; and East China University of Political Science and Law (ECUPL), Shanghai. The Centre is a member of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) Research Partnership Platform on Competition and Consumer Protection. In the last five years, CBLP has been awarded a total of £1,640,269 in research grants.
Read more about the Centre for Business Law and Practice at essl.leeds.ac.uk/research-centre-business-law-practice
The Researchers at University of Leeds
Prof. Pınar Akman
DirectorPınar Akman is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Centre for Business Law and Practice at the University of Leeds. She is also a Director at the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in Digital Governance funded by the EU Commission. She has published widely in the area of competition law and economics, particularly on abuse of dominance and competition in digital markets. She was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize (£100,000) in 2017 to further her research into the application of competition law in digital markets. She has presented her research in over 20 countries around the globe including providing oral evidence to the UK House of Lords, US Federal Trade Commission, and speaking at the OECD, World Economic Forum and the United Nations. In 2019, she was appointed by the World Economic Forum to author a White Paper on Competition Policy in a Globalized, Digitalized Economy. In 2018, she was awarded a Women of Achievement Award by the University of Leeds.
She is the author of the monograph The Concept of Abuse in EU Competition Law: Law and Economic Approaches (Hart Publishing, 2012; reprinted, 2015). Her other research has been published in prestigious journals such as the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Antitrust Law Journal, Modern Law Review, Fordham International Law Journal, etc. She is a Non-Governmental Advisor to the UK and to Turkey for the International Competition Network. She is a member of: the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Peer Review College; the UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowships (UKRI FLF) Programme Peer Review College; Florence Competition Programme Scientific Committee (EUI); Editorial Board of World Competition and of Oxford Competition Law. In 2014, she was the International Rapporteur to the International League of Competition (LIDC) on abuse of dominance. She was shortlisted for an Antitrust Writing Award in 2016, 2017, and 2018 (Concurrences Review & George Washington Competition Law Center).
Professor Akman holds Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Law from the University of Ankara, where she graduated first in her Bachelors class. She holds a PhD in Competition Law from the University of East Anglia, which was funded by an Overseas Research Scholars Award of the UK Secretary of State for Education and Science. She was one of the investigators who secured over £4 million in funding for the second term of the ESRC Centre for Competition Policy at the University of East Anglia.