about us
Our mandate
The JSW Law Research Centre is the institutional home of research at JSW Law and serves as the Research Division of RALS. It was constituted under the JSW Law Research Centre Policy 2022, approved by the Governing Council on 13 October 2022, and is governed in detail by the JSW Law Research Centre Guideline 2026, in force since 1 January 2026.
The Policy establishes the Centre to promote independent research, provide a forum for critical academic dialogue, support scholars at every stage of their careers, bring together scholars, practitioners, faculty and students, serve as a centre of academic research on law in Bhutan, host innovative thinkers who work alongside faculty, and build networks with research institutions in Bhutan and abroad.
The Centre began as an interdisciplinary platform devoted to the study of Gross National Happiness, law and development, and it remains a place for both theoretically oriented and practically relevant research. It coordinates the full research cycle, from the first conversation about a research question through ethical clearance, funding, fieldwork and writing, to editorial support, publication and public dissemination, so that researchers can concentrate on the substance of their work.
What the Centre does
- Research agenda and portfolio: stewarding the JSW Law research agenda and keeping a register of research projects and outputs.
- Faculty development: supporting annual research plans, mentoring, training and recognition for faculty.
- Funding: administering research grants and financial support for publications, conferences and book events.
- Fellowships and visitors: running outgoing fellowships, incoming fellowships and the Visiting Scholars Programme.
- Linkages: developing memoranda of understanding and joint research programmes with partner institutions.
- Forums: convening the forums, lectures, roundtables and the annual research conference set out in the Convening Calendar.
- Ethics: providing the secretariat of the RERC and coordinating ethical clearance for all research involving human participants.
- Publishing: administering the JSW Law Publishing Series, its journals and books, and the editorial boards.
- Impact: recording how JSW Law research is used in policy, law reform, practice and public life.
- Students: managing the Student Research Volunteer Programme, the Research Intern Programme and student research outputs.
- Public legal education: supporting Legis Lumen and the JSW Law Podcast Series.
Academic focus areas
The Centre’s work is organised around a five-year research agenda, to be approved by 30 June 2027 and written into every funding call. The agenda gives the law school a focused and distinctive research identity while leaving researchers free to pursue questions that matter to them.
- Gross National Happiness and the law: how legal institutions contribute to equitable, sustainable and humane development, and how wellbeing can be expressed in legal rules and institutions.
- Constitutionalism and governance: Bhutanese constitutional law, democratic institutions, separation of powers, local governance and institutional development.
- Justice-sector development: legal procedure, court administration, legal aid and access to justice, undertaken in partnership with the justice sector.
- Business, trade and finance: commercial, corporate and financial law, including the legal framework of Gelephu Mindfulness City as a Special Administrative Region.
- Climate, environment and sustainability: environmental law, natural resources, climate justice and the legal protection of Bhutan’s environment.
- Technology and law: data protection, digital governance, artificial intelligence and the regulation of emerging technologies.
- International relations and comparative law: international law, regional cooperation in SAARC and ASEAN, and cross-jurisdictional studies that illuminate Bhutan’s legal system.
- Legal history and heritage: customary law, Bhutan’s legal traditions and the preservation of its legal heritage, drawing on the JSW Law Archive.
- Legal education: pedagogy, professional formation and the development of the legal profession.
Within the agenda, the Strategy proposes a sequence of flagship research programmes, subject to the Dean’s approval: GNH and Law throughout the period; GMC Law and Governance in 2027-2028; Climate, Environment and Law in 2029; and Technology and Law in 2030-2031. The Centre also welcomes interdisciplinary research that connects law with economics, technology, history, politics, science, medicine, culture, religion and the social sciences.
Research centres and LENS
JSW Law hosts several research centres and clinics, each with its own focus:
Legal impact
JSW Law research is meant to be used. The Research Centre Guideline measures impact on four dimensions, and RALS records evidence against each of them.
How often JSW Law research is cited by other scholars. Authors in the Publishing Series receive citation reports twice a year.
How research informs legislation, policy, regulation and law reform.
How research reaches public debate through the press, broadcast and social media.
How research improves access to justice, legal awareness and the work of institutions and communities.
The Centre keeps an impact register of documented uses of JSW Law research, asks larger projects to prepare a short impact plan at the start, helps faculty prepare policy briefs and practice notes, and publishes an annual monitoring and evaluation report.
Institutional linkages
Research is stronger when it is connected. The Centre develops linkages with universities, research institutes, courts, government agencies and international organisations through memoranda of understanding, joint research programmes, faculty exchanges, co-hosted events and shared access to resources. Before any joint research begins, the partners sign a written collaboration agreement covering responsibilities, data, authorship, intellectual property and funding.
Research services
The Centre’s services are available to full-time faculty, adjunct and visiting faculty, students undertaking supervised research, visiting fellows and external collaborators working on projects with the law school.
Research design and proposal development: advice on framing research questions, reviewing literature, choosing methods and preparing proposals that meet institutional and external funding requirements.
Access to research resources: with the Library, access to HeinOnline, ElgarOnline, LexisNexis, the print collection, open-access resources, the JSW Law Archive and, from its launch, DLIN.
Ethical clearance support: guidance on the clearance process and help preparing applications for the RERC. Ethical clearance is free.
Editorial and publication support: proofreading, copy-editing, formatting, citation checking under the JSW Law OSCOLA Citation Style Guide, and advice on choosing journals and publishers.
Researcher assistance: literature reviews, data collection, transcription, proofreading, citation and formatting, editorial review and plain-language summaries, matched with Centre staff, trained research assistants or volunteers.
Copying, printing and digital archiving: facilities to prepare research instruments and archive completed work.
Dissemination: support through conferences, forums, public lectures, media engagement, Legis Lumen and the JSW Law Podcast Series, with policy briefs for research that has policy implications.
The Research Service Centre: a joint service with the Library’s reference team offering writing-integrity support for new students, technical research services and structured peer feedback on drafts.