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Research Centers and Programs

  1. Faculty and Scholarship
  2. Research Centers and Programs

Columbia Law School’s research centers and programs reflect the breadth of our faculty’s expertise and the exceptional quality of their scholarship. Through their rigorous research, faculty experts explore foundational, emerging, and interdisciplinary areas of the law. In addition to convening academics, policymakers, judges, and business leaders from around the globe, centers and programs offer students valuable opportunities to collaborate with experienced scholars and researchers.

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Center for Institutional and Social Change

The Center for Institutional and Social Change facilitates collaboration between scholars, practitioners, and students striving to address structural inequality through institutional transformation. Participants use brainstorming, strategic analysis, and empirical and field research to develop new frameworks, strategies, and roles for effective institutional and social change.

 

Areas of Study

Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies

The Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies examines how social structures and related identity categories, such as gender, race, and class, interact to create social inequality. Its interdisciplinary and innovative research projects and initiatives unite a diverse group of academics and advocates interested in developing effective solutions to institutional inequality.

 

Areas of Study

Center for Public Research and Leadership

The Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL) aims to revitalize public education while filling substantial gaps in professional education. CPRL’s rigorous coursework, skills training, and research and consulting projects prepare graduate students in law, business, and public policy for careers in the education sector. With an eye toward improving outcomes for all children, CPRL utilizes the latest techniques in education, such as organizational design, democratic accountability, team-based problem-solving skills, and socio-emotional learning. Students can also participate in a semster-long intensive around transformational change in public education by enrolling in the Public Education Policy Lab-Seminar and Skills courses. 

 

Areas of Study

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity

The Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (CAPI) improves the capacity of public offices and practitioners to deter, identify, and combat corruption at the municipal level of government. CAPI supports a vibrant community of leaders in the public integrity field, develops tools and resources to help governments and practitioners fight corruption, and promotes research and scholarship on important public integrity issues.

 

Areas of Study

Davis Polk Leadership Initiative

Through the Davis Polk Leadership Initiative, Columbia Law offers courses, workshops, and research and professional development opportunities to teach students to be leaders in both the private and public sectors worldwide. Students learn not only to manage the everyday practice they will pursue, but also to rise to complex challenges throughout their careers.

Areas of Study

Human Rights Institute

The Human Rights Institute draws on the Law School’s deep human rights tradition to support and influence human rights practice in the United States and around the world. The institute builds bridges between scholarship and practice in four key areas—counterterrorism and armed conflict, human rights in the U.S., the Inter-American Human Rights System, and the global economy—employing tools such as field work, advocacy, fact-finding reports, and symposia.

Areas of Study

Studio for Law and Culture

The Studio for Law and Culture at Columbia University (SLC) is an intellectual home for the study, research, and scholarship on the intersection of law and culture. In addition to hosting fellowships, events, and workshops, SLC supports projects that explore dual interpretations of the law—as both a strict institutional doctrine and as a regime for ordering social life, constructing cultural meaning, and shaping group and individual identities. 

 

Areas of Study