The Equal Rights Trust is pleased to launch the Bob Hepple Equality Law Fellowship to support individuals interested in increasing their knowledge and experience in the field of equality law. The Fellowship is launched in memory of the late Professor Sir Bob Hepple QC, champion of equality and non-discrimination with a lifelong commitment to legal education, and Chair and then Honorary President of the Trust.
The Fellowship seeks to support the professional development of researchers on equality law and is aimed at graduate students, lawyers, academics or activists with an interest in building their knowledge and understanding of the field. We aim to award up to four Fellowships, each consisting of:
- A financial award of £7,000;
- Extensive ongoing training, technical support and expert guidance on equality law from our team;
- The opportunity to undertake supervised research on one of two exciting global publications on the development and application of comprehensive anti-discrimination laws.
We are grateful to the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for providing the funding to support the Fellowship scheme.
Fellows will be selected through an Equality Law Essay Competition.
Entry Requirements
1. Participants must hold a law degree and have demonstrated experience or interest in equality law;
2. Participants must submit their entry to fellowships@equalrightstrust.org by 4pm BST on 15 October 2020;
3. Participants should choose one of the following topics:
- Compare and analyse judicial approaches to laws criminalising same-sex relations in Botswana, Kenya and India.
- When can discrimination be justified? Explain your answer by reference to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights or the American Convention on Human Rights.
4. Participants must submit an unpublished essay in English written solely by them.
5. The target length of the essay shall be around 3000 words. Essays that are shorter than 2500 words and longer than 3500 words will not be considered.
6. Essays must be appropriately referenced in footnotes or endnotes and must include a Bibliography. The Bibliography and references should not be included in the word count.
7. Essays will only be accepted in Word format.
8. The document should follow the following formatting guidelines:
- Pages should be numbered.
- Cambria font, 11-point, should be used for the body of the essay and 10-point for footnotes/endnotes.
- Line spacing should be 1.5 lines for the body of the essay and single-spaced for footnotes/endnotes.
- Character spacing must be set to normal.
Any essay that does not follow the guidelines will be reformatted and points will be deducted.
9. Authors should not put their name or any identifying information in their essays.
10. Each participant must also include a curriculum vitae of no more than two pages in length, explaining the experience or interest of the author in equality law. CVs must be submitted as a separate document from the essay. CVs will be accepted in Word or PDF format.
Fellowship Scheme
There is no geographical scope or limitation to this scheme. Participants from anywhere in the world are invited to enter the competition. All training and research activities associated with the fellowship will take place remotely.
We particularly welcome entries from participants who may have suffered disadvantage because of one or more protected characteristic.
Unfortunately, Fellows are not eligible for visa sponsorship under the UK’s Immigration Rules.
Fellows will be responsible for any tax, national insurance or similar liability or contribution arising from receipt of the award in their jurisdiction.
