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Our diverse and inclusive community cultivates and safeguards rigorous and critical thinking, inspiring the very best legal thinking globally and advancing legal knowledge for the benefit of society.
Fundamentally, the vision for UCL Laws is as a research-led academic institution and a community, in which strong bonds, norms and structures allow world-leading research and excellent teaching to flourish and humanity to be practised across a broad set of constituencies that make up the Faculty (including colleagues, students and alumni). Since its inception, the Faculty has been motivated by social justice and rule of law values. It aims to contribute positively to society by inculcating a deep understanding of the rule of law across legal subjects and systems, and through pioneering legal thinking from a diversity of perspectives and methodological approaches (including doctrinal, philosophical, political, historical, sociological and economic approaches to studying law). Although the Faculty promotes a culture of intellectual diversity of thought, all colleagues are united by the pursuit of the highest standards of academic rigour in whatever approach to law they take.
This ambitious vision requires many people and elements to work together in harmony, from our world-leading researchers engaging actively with students in the classroom and with valued external partners around the world, to our professional services staff who collaboratively support the Faculty’s academic mission. It also has a number of implications for defining and implementing our priorities, starting from our uncompromising commitment to the highest academic standards, to inculcating a spirit of intellectual generosity, and promoting equality of opportunity. This vision for our Faculty also implies that our staff and students have time and space to think and reflect, and that there are opportunities for intellectual exchange, challenge, mutual learning and serendipitous encounter. Thinking well is at the core of what we do. Our vision also implies that academic priorities should guide our decision-making, our strategies, and our processes, and that academic colleagues are collegiate in driving the academic mission and success of the Faculty.
The vision for our Faculty is rooted in values and commitments that have defined our identity since our foundation in 1832. We were founded as an ‘inclusive law school’ (the first to admit students regardless of religious background and subsequently the first to admit women on the same basis as men) and that identity remains core to our daily mission. Diversity amongst, and equality of opportunity for, students and staff are central to our values-based culture and to our intellectual excellence. In this spirit, we are also a Faculty of ‘Laws’, global in outlook and developing knowledge about laws across legal systems, across legal sub-fields and across disciplines.
In short, the culture of our Laws community cultivates and safeguards what it means to think critically, to grow intellectually and to inspire the very best legal thinking, all for the benefit of society.
