School of Law - Research

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The School of Law’s research strengths cover a wide range of topical legal issues, such as intellectual property, the environment, health law, commercial and consumer law, e-business and e-government and the scholarship of learning law, led by a number of professors who are widely recognised in their fields.  The discipline of law at QUT was rated a ‘3’ in the 2010 Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) exercise, which equates to research quality of world standard. The national average for law is an ERA rating of ‘2’.

Staff of the School supervise around 50 postgraduate research students, with research topics as varied as corporate criminal responsibility and environmental law, the impact of taxation law on priorities in insolvency, and native title and the concept of society (see list of current thesis topics).  

The School holds a number of ARC research grants – both Discovery and Linkage – with a combined value of over $1 million. Research topics include:

• Withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment from adults lacking capacity: Enhancing medical decision making through doctors' compliance with the law
• An integrated legal regime for a sustainable carbon cycle
• Building the Rule of Law in International Affairs

Staff also undertake research work on behalf of, or funded by, government and industry bodies. Examples of current work include a review of the Environmental Protection Act for the Department of Environment and Resource Management, an investigation of the impact of the regulation of interest rate caps on behalf of the National Financial Services Federation and how critical infrastructure might be protected from denial of service attacks funded by the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund.

Staff of the School publish their research in a range of outlets, including books, scholarly refereed journals and loose-leaf services for the profession.

See also the Grants and Achievements page.