2022 Network Conference on The post-pandemic effect

Datum:
15 september 2022 tot 16 september 2022

Locatie:
University of Bristol Law School (UK) & online

The Faculties of Law of the Universities of Bristol, Budapest (ELTE), Ghent, Göttingen, Groningen, Lille, Turku and Uppsala cordially invite PhD students and Academics to participate in the 14th annual Legal Research Network Conference on the 15th and 16th of September 2022. The conference will be hosted by the University of Bristol Law School (UK).

Aim of the Legal Research Network Conference

The conference of the Legal Research Network (LRN) aims at creating a stimulating research environment and a common space for senior and junior scholars to present and discuss international oriented legal research. The conference provides for the opportunity for PhD students and early career academics to present their research and discuss their ideas with Academics from the different Universities of the Legal Research Network. The conference language is English. The conference will be organized as a hybrid event. Accordingly, online participation is possible, but we do hope to welcome many participants in person.

2022 Conference Theme

The post-pandemic effect: New opportunities for social and sustainable development?

The last two years have not been without challenges. While the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has occupied our collective conscience and exposed many of structural vulnerabilities in industrialised societies, the ever-looming Climate crises becomes more serious by the day. The research community just like any other work sector has been put under immense pressure, as the pandemic-related measures closed traditional research avenues and opportunities while reducing support networks including childcare and access to peer support. Researchers thus had to be creative in developing new methods and learning new tools to organise their work and research their audiences or research subjects. Now, research communities along the rest of the workforce slowly return to ‘normal’ and in the hope not to ‘miss’ the opportunity of a crisis, we want to explore what we can learn from these experiences and how this provides opportunities for social and sustainable development.

We invite, although not necessarily require, participants to use their own experience as researchers during the pandemic and how this has opened up new research opportunities that can have lasting effects on social and sustainable development. In line with governments across the globe promising to ‘build back better’, the conference explores how the pandemic exposed vulnerabilities within traditional work structures and how patterns of work and research have to be changed and supported to increase social development while recognising the need for sustainability and Net Zero targets. While these different aims are not without contradictions and may at times pull towards different directions, participants are invited to consider potential need for changing work infrastructure to address social and structural vulnerabilities as well as sustainability. This can be approached from different angles and different areas of law. It can consider proposals for change as well as analyse existing policies and practices. It can observe practical changes that have opened up new opportunities in terms of work and development and potential positive spill over effects of these new developments. It also allows for theoretical interventions to reconcile (or not) the different interests in light of the recent worldwide pandemic.

The Call for Papers can be found here.

Additional information: For questions and queries, contact your local faculty representative in the organizing committee or Jule Mulder (jule.mulder@bristol.ac.uk) or Anamaria Santos Fonseca Sousa (anamaria.sousa@bristol.ac.uk) in Bristol.