Socio-Legal Studies
Socio-Legal Studies is where law meets the humanities and social sciences.
The SLSA annual conference is the UK’s leading forum for socio-legal researchers and interdisciplinary researchers with an interest in the law to share ideas and their latest findings.
The 2023 conference will be a hybrid event, with provision for delegates to join us on campus or remotely. Ulster University and Derry-Londonderry look forward to welcoming 660 people to Magee and an unlimited amount virtual delegates to share in the experience.
Please direct any queries by email to: SLSA2023@ulster.ac.uk.
Partners
What's On at the Conference
Around 800 papers showcasing the latest and best in socio-legal research across 40 streams and current topics.
Two plenaries reflecting on 25 years of devolution in the UK and the future for socio-legal and interdisciplinary research. The best opportunity of the year to network with other socio-legal researchers, research funders and publishers. All sessions delivered in-person and online.
All in all, a Legenderry conference. Registration is now closed – we hope you managed to book a place, and look forward to seeing you in Derry-Londonderry.
Plenary Session
It is particularly appropriate that the conference should come to Derry-Londonderry in 2023. The year marks the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and of the referenda and Acts of Parliament that established devolved institutions of government for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Two of the architects of Northern Ireland’s contemporary devolution settlement – Nobel laureate (and holder of an honorary doctorate from Ulster) John Hume and former Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness – were born in the city.
The conference will mark this important milestone in the UK’s constitutional history with an interdisciplinary plenary discussion on 25 years of devolution, with contributors from each of the three devolved countries.
Details of the speakers can be found in the programme area, this will be updated closer to the conference. For any further information please email us your query at SLSA2023@ulster.ac.uk.
Programme
The session-by-session schedule of papers for presentation will appear on the Oxford Abstracts online programme closer to the conference date. Abstracts and links to hybrid sessions for virtual delegates will also be available through the online programme. Please direct any queries by email to: SLSA2023@ulster.ac.uk
Day 1 – 4 April
9.30 Registration opens
Morning/early afternoon of 4 April:
- 10.00 Welcome from the SLSA PGR reps
- 10.10 Collaborating internationally
- 11.10 The PhD toolkit
- 12.10 Navigating social media
12.00-13.30 Lunch
13.00-14.30 Paper session 1 (parallel sessions)
14.45-16.15 Paper session 2 (parallel sessions)
16.30-17.30 Socio-legal and interdisciplinary research: REF and beyond. A conversation with Joanne Conaghan, Nick Ellison,
John Harrington and Ann Marie Gray
18.00-20.00 Evening reception (St Columb’s Hall)
Day 2 – 5 April
8.30 Registration opens
9.00-10.30 Paper session 3 (parallel sessions)
11.00-12.30 Paper session 4 (parallel sessions)
12.30-14.00 Lunch
12.30-13.30 Lunch and learn with funders
13.00-14.00 SLSA AGM
14.00-15.30 Paper session 5 (parallel sessions)
15.45-17.15 Paper session 6 (parallel sessions)
17.30-19.00 Plenary (25 years of devolution)
Speakers
Brice Dickson, Anwen Elias, Michael Keating and Nicola McEwen
19.30-23.00 Conference dinner and awards (Everglades Hotel)
Day 3 – 6 April
9.00 Registration opens
9.30-11.00 Paper session 7 (parallel sessions)
11.30-13.00 Paper session 8 (parallel sessions)
13.00-14.00 Conference conclusion, collect lunches and departure
Postgraduate Activities
A dedicated programme for postgraduate researchers will be offered on the first morning of the conference. Details will appear here as soon as they have been confirmed.
In addition, PGRs are invited to submit an entry to the annual poster competition.
The deadline for submissions has now passed. The conference team will contact successful authors after 23 January to explain the next steps.
Social Activities
Postgraduate delegates who arrive early are invited to meet up on the evening of Monday 3 April. We are holding a social event on 4th April at St Columb's Hall 6-8pm. The conference dinner and prizegiving will take place on Wednesday 5 April at the Everglades Hotel from 7:30pm. Please visit the Programme section for more details.
A Host City for a LegenDerry Conference
A Host City for a LegenDerry Conference
Thank you to our main sponsor Visit Derry.
Attendees at SLSA 2023 at Ulster University are assured of a memorable visit to a picturesque city whose history has for centuries been inseparable from Britain and Ireland’s turbulent relationship. Derry-Londonderry’s recent history is very much a legal history, from the civil rights movement of the 1960s to the landmark Saville inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday in January 1972, which led to the deaths of 14 protestors.
In recent years the city has come to prominence as the first ever UK City of Culture (2013), home of Europe’s largest Halloween festival and, of course, the location of the hit Channel 4 series Derry Girls. Nearby, Northern Ireland’s north coast is home to the Giant’s Causeway UNESCO World Heritage Site, Royal Portrush golf course (host of the Open Championship) and multiple Game of Thrones locations. Just a stone’s throw away, over the border, are the beautiful hills of Donegal (the county was named the “Coolest Place on the Planet” by National Geographic Traveller Magazine in 2017).
Find out more about the host city at Visit Derry.
A wide variety of hotels and other accommodation is available in and around Derry-Londonderry. Delegates who register by 20 February will receive a discount code to access preferential rates in our partner hotels (subject to availability of rooms:
- Bishop’s Gate Hotel – city centre boutique hotel, 15 mins walk from conference venue
- City Hotel – city centre hotel, 10 mins walk from conference venue
- Da Vinci’s Hotel – riverside hotel, 20 mins walk from conference venue
- Everglades Hotel – outlying hotel, venue for conference dinner, 10 mins drive from conference venue
- Holiday Inn Express – city centre hotel, less than 10 mins walk from conference venue
- Maldron Hotel – city centre hotel, 15 mins walk from conference venue
- Shipquay Hotel – city centre boutique hotel, 15 mins walk from conference venue
- Waterfoot Hotel – outlying riverside hotel, 10 mins drive from conference venue
- White Horse Hotel – outlying hotel near City of Derry Airport, 15 mins drive from conference venue
A variety of alternative accommodation options, at a range of budgets, is available elsewhere in and around Derry-Londonderry.
A shuttle bus will connect the outlying hotels with the conference and conference dinner venues, also picking up in the city centre.
Fly
Fly to Belfast International Airport (connections to airports across Europe and to the United States) or Belfast City Airport (UK airports) and take the Airporter bus to Derry-Londonderry. Delegates will be provided with a discount code for Airporter upon registration. City of Derry Airport offers connections to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, London Stansted, Manchester and the Algarve and is a short bus (limited service) or taxi ride from the city. Dublin Airport serves a much wider range of international destinations. Take bus X3 or X4 to Derry-Londonderry, or one of various public and private bus services to Belfast. Ireland West Knock Airport serves destinations in the UK, Spain, Portugal and Italy and is connected to Derry-Londonderry by bus 64.
Ferry
Ferry from Cairnryan or Liverpool to Belfast, or from Holyhead to Dublin, with Stena Line or Irish Ferries. Cheap bus tickets (including ferry crossing) are available to Belfast from various cities in England and Scotland, and a limited Rail and Sail service operates via Cairnyan and Holyhead. From Belfast, take bus 212 or the longer but very scenic rail journey from Belfast to Derry-Londonderry. From Dublin, take bus X3 or X4 to Derry-Londonderry, or the train to Belfast and continue by bus or rail. Read further Public transport information.
Train/Bus
From Ireland, take the train from Dublin to Belfast then continue to Derry-Londonderry by train or bus 212, or take bus X3/X4 direct to Derry-Londonderry. By road, take the M1/A1 to Belfast and the M2/M22/A6 to Derry-Londonderry. From many places in the west, the fastest route is also via Dublin, but you can take bus 64 from Galway to Derry-Londonderry.
Car
By road, take the N20/M20 (Cork to Limerick), N18/M18 (Limerick to Athenry, near Galway), M17/N17/N4 (Athenry to Sligo), N15/N13 (Sligo to Letterkenny) and N13/A515 (Letterkenny to Derry-Londonderry).
Meet your Host: The Ulster University School of Law
Ulster University is home to a relatively small law school, offering undergraduate courses at our Magee and Belfast campuses and postgraduate programmes in Belfast. We also host the multi-award-winning Ulster Law Clinic, whose postgraduate students offer advice and representation on employment and social security law problems, and the Legal Innovation Centre, a pioneering collaboration between the School of Law and the School of Computing and Intelligent Systems.
Ulster has a proud track record in socio-legal and interdisciplinary research, specialising in social justice and transitional justice. In the Research Excellence Framework 2021, 82% of our research, 100% of our research environment and 75% of our research impact was assessed as world-leading or internationally excellent.
Most of the conference will take place in the Derry~Londonderry campus’s main teaching block, opened in 2018.
Contact the Conference Team: Email: slsa2023@ulster.ac.uk
Derry~Londonderry Campus
Northland Rd, Londonderry, BT48 7JL
