ReseaRch Quality assuRance foR the futuRe a ... - Lund University

Panel 1 – law
location of sociology of law be reconsidered. Closer collaboration between
the sociology of law and the positive-law disciplines could benefit both
sides, and the inclusion of the sociology of law in the Law Faculty would
strengthen the general jurisprudential disciplines. Commercial law,
currently located in the Business School (LUSEM), should also be (re-)
integrated with the Law Faculty.
Several disciplines in the Faculty lack tenured, full professors. The Faculty
seems to rely on the promotion system and wait for associate professors to
qualify for professorships. The system motivates associate professors and
creates guarantees for a secure academic career. However, it may also turn
into an obstacle to the recruitment of best possible talents in the academic
“market-place” and diminish mobility between universities.
Strategic planning and the setting of emphases in any law faculty have
their limits, because a law faculty has to cover all the fields relevant for
legal education. In line with this, the Strategic Plan of the Faculty states
that all key disciplines should be staffed by at least one full professor.
However, four of these disciplines currently lack a professor: legal theory,
legal history, banking law (a donated chair) and environmental law. This
state of affairs is far from satisfactory.
In addition to the four disciplines mentioned above, there is no professorship
in EU law. This is a conscious choice of the Faculty. The basic
idea is that EU law traverses almost all positive-law disciplines and should
be dealt with in conjunction with the respective norms of domestic law.
This is a defendable argument. However, it can also be maintained that
there are certain general premises and principles of EU law which, in a
dispersed model, do not perhaps receive the attention they deserve. The
same goes for institutional and constitutional issues. In the latter respect,
it should also be noted that constitutional law does not belong to the
strong areas of the Faculty; indeed, there is no professor specialized in
constitutional law, either.
The doctoral training at the Faculty is well-developed, and the training
is networked both at the national and the international level. However,
the small number of the doctoral students is alarming; in fact, there is a
danger that in certain areas the current lack of competent research and
teaching staff will not be remedied in the future, especially if the present
reliance on the closed promotion system continues.
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