UCL Laws co-hosts ASCOLA 2026 conference shaping the future of competition law

UCL Faculty of Laws welcomed leading academics, regulators, judges, policymakers and practitioners from dozens of jurisdictions for ASCOLA 2026, the annual conference of the Academic Society for Competition Law. 

Jointly hosted by UCL and King’s College London (KCL), with the support of Queen Mary University of London and the University of Cambridge, the event united four of the UK’s leading academic centres in this area to examine how competition law can respond to major societal challenges, including technological transformation, inequality and the changing role of the state, and geopolitical uncertainty.

Organised by the UCL Centre for Law, Economics and Society (CLES), the conference was hosted over three days at UCL’s Bentham House and KCL’s Bush House. It featured more than 100 peer-reviewed research papers showcasing emerging scholarship from across the globe.

Conference discussions examined the relationship between academic research and real-world impact, the future of international cooperation in an increasingly fragmented global landscape, and the role of competition law in addressing challenges posed by digital markets and artificial intelligence. Participants also explored wider questions of governance, accountability and social welfare.

ASCOLA 2026 formed part of UCL Faculty of Laws’ UCL200 event programming and was partly funded by the Valentine Korah Fund, established in memory of UCL’s first female law professor and a pioneering figure in European and international competition law. The conference saw the launch of the Valentine Korah Prize for Competition Law, which will recognise outstanding scholarship and support the development of future research in the field.

The organising committee for the conference included CLES’s Professor Ioannis Lianos (chair), Associate Professor Deni Mantzari, and Dr Stavros Makris. They were supported by PhD candidate Todd Davies, and a student assistant team made up of talented LLB, LLM and MSc students from UCL and KCL. 

Across three days, ASCOLA 2026 provided a platform for exchanging ideas, challenging established thinking and shaping future research and policy agendas, and highlighted UCL Laws’ leading role in competition law research and international collaboration.

Read a summary of the conference proceedings on the CLES website.