Professor Rosie Harding

• LLB (Hons) University of Edinburgh
• LLM Keele University
• PhD University of Kent
• PgC Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Keele
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Professor Harding completed her LLB at the University of Edinburgh, her LLM at Keele and her PhD at the University of Kent. Prior to joining Birmingham Law School in 2012, she taught at Keele Law School from 2004-2012. She has held visiting positions at Lund University (Sweden), University of Adelaide (Australia), Flinders University (Australia) and the University of Edinburgh.

Professor Harding is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, an Honorary Academic Bencher of Middle Temple and a Charity Trustee for Changing Our Lives.

She is a member of the UKRI FLF panel college, the ESRC Peer Review College and also regularly reviews proposals for other national and international funding bodies. She is a member of the Society of Legal Scholars, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Professor Harding was a member of the SLSA executive committee from 2013-2022, serving as Vice Chair from 2015-2017, and Chair from 2017-2022. 

Professor Harding has undertaken many academic leadership roles, including: Associate Dean (2024 – present); Head of Research Funding (2022 – 2024); Acting Head of School (2014-15); Director of Research (2015-2016); Deputy Director of Research (2012 – 2014); Head of Postgraduate Research (2012-2014); PGT Director (2011-12). She has reviewed for over 40 peer-reviewed journals, including leading journals in socio-legal studies, healthcare law, disability and gender, sexuality and law. She is general editor of the Law, Society, Policy book series published by Bristol University Press. 

In 2017, Professor Harding was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for Law, and is currently focused on undertaking research supported by this prize.

Professor Harding is happy to supervise postgraduate research students in any of the following areas:

- Mental Capacity and Disability Law, especially research involving questions of everyday decision-making, dementia, intellectual disability, powers of attorney, advance directives and end of life decision making.
- Older persons rights, especially research focused on older person’s attitudes to human rights, and the arguments for and against a new international convention on the rights of older persons.

She is especially interested in supervising research involving empirical socio-legal methods. Potential research students are welcome to contact her by email to discuss their research proposals prior to submitting a formal application.

Current PhD Students:
- Alex Cisneros ‘Vulnerability, Deprivation of Liberty and the Liberty Protection Safeguards’
- Dhanishka Seneviratne ‘Vulnerability, Relationality, and Disability-Selective Abortions: Assessing the effects of responsive state action in the conflict between disability rights and reproductive choice’ (ESRC Funded)
- Sumaiyah Kholwadia ‘Legal and Policy Barriers Impeding Muslim Women's Right to Spiritual Equality’ (AHRC funded)
- Aman Thakur ‘Developing disability assessment policies in light of the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’.
- Ketevan Khomeriki ‘Reconceptualising mental health law through experiences of people with psychosocial needs in Georgia’ (ESRC funded)

Find out more - our PhD Law  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Professor Harding’s main research interests are in how law operates in everyday life. She is interested in how people experience legal frameworks and how they make decisions about whether or not to use law to solve problems. Much of her research to date has focused on the recognition and regulation of intimate and caring relationships. Her work straddles areas of equality law, family law, healthcare law, human rights and jurisprudence.

Her current research seeks to understand the ways that ideas of capacity operate in everyday legally relevant decision making. Her Everyday Decisions project (www.legalcapacity.org.uk) explored the place of law in the everyday lives of people with intellectual disabilities. Using qualitative research methods, this project interrogates how socio-legal understandings of ‘legal’ and ‘mental’ capacity interact in the everyday lives of people with intellectual disabilities, in order to generate new approaches to better support their everyday legally-relevant decision making. This research was funded by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship award.

In 2018 she undertook a follow-up project building on her findings from the Everyday Decisions project to explore socio-legal dimensions of supported will-making. This work was funded by the University of Birmingham ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, and was in collaboration with the Law Commission of England and Wales.

Her more recent research has focused on accessibility in legal services, and the importance of accessible legal information. More information is available on the Everyday Decisions project website.

• Honorary Academic Bencher, Middle Temple
• Fellow, Academy of Social Sciences
• Trustee, Changing our Lives (2019- present)
• General Editor, Law, Society, Policy book series (Bristol University Press)
• British Academy Mid-Career Fellow 2016-17
• Philip Leverhulme Prizewinner 2017
• Chair, Socio-Legal Studies Association, 2017-2022
• Fellow of the ESRC Peer-Review College and the UKRI Future Leadership Fellows Panel College

Websites:

• www.legalcapacity.org.uk