Cardiff legal experts join prestigious Academy of Social Sciences

Two Cardiff law scholars have been elected to the Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences this October.

Professors Jiří Přibáň and Russell Sandberg of the School of Law and Politics were part of a cohort of 47 social scientists who joined the Fellowship this autumn.

The Academy’s Fellowship comprises over 1,500 leading social scientists from academia, the public, private and third sectors. Their expertise covers the breadth of the social sciences, and their practice and research addresses some of the major challenges facing communities, society, places and economies. All Academy Fellows are selected through an independent peer review which recognises their excellence and impact, including their wider contributions to social sciences for public benefit.

Professor Přibáň is a highly respected contributor to social scientific studies of law in the UK. He is known for his distinctive research which focuses on the sociology of constitutionalism, his energetic and well-focused institutional activities as a promoter and nurturer of socio-legal studies, and his wide-ranging involvement in the promotion of democracy, constitutionalism, and the rule of law mainly in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2022, he was appointed member of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic and received the Socio-Legal Studies Association prizes for both the best article (in 2005) and the best theoretical book (in 2016). He leads the Working Group on the Sociology of Constitutions for the Research Committee on Sociology of Law and, in addition to his work at Cardiff, has been a visiting professor at the International Institute for the Sociology of Law in Onati, the Basque Country, Spain.

Professor Sandberg's research interrogates the interaction between law and the humanities with particular expertise in law and religion and legal history. In recent years his research has focused on reforms to marriage and education law as well as upon the need for interdisciplinary approaches to law. His research has been cited in parliamentary debates at both Westminster and Senedd Cymru as well as by the UK Supreme Court and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. He is the editor or co-editor of five book series including the Analysing Leading Works in Law book series with Routledge which he devised. Professor Sandberg is also Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

The full list of this autumn’s Fellows can be found on the Academy of Social Sciences website.