Professor Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos joined the School this week from Goldsmiths, University of London, where he held the Inaugural Chair in Law
By Dr Shamim Quadir (Senior Communications Officer), Published
This week, The City Law School was delighted to welcome Professor Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos as its new Head of Department, Academic Programmes.
Professor Giannoulopoulos brings to the School his wealth of teaching, supervision and research experience, and most recently held the position of Inaugural Chair in Law at Goldsmiths, University of London.
These accomplishments include his exceptional track record for delivery on student experience and satisfaction for taught courses, and his internationally leading expertise on how human rights norms are applied in domestic criminal justice systems.
Professor Giannoulopoulos has published widely on improperly obtained evidence, suspects’ rights, and the application of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) jurisprudence in domestic systems.
His work has been cited extensively including by the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT).
Professor Giannoulopoulos was the founder and director of the academic think tank ‘Britain in Europe’, led the externally funded human rights awareness programme ‘Knowing Our Rights’ (in the context of which he has taught over 3000 students in local schools in London, between 2017 and 2020), was elected an Academic Bencher at the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple (in 2020) and more recently joined Garden Court Chambers as an Associate Tenant (in 2023).
His legal cosmopolitan work includes his recent appointments as a Global Law Professor (Visiting) at the Faculty of Law and Criminology at KU Leuven and as a Research Visitor at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Mansfield College, at Oxford University. He obtained his PhD at the École doctorale de droit comparé at the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne).
Professor Giannoulopoulos' expertise in public engagement and legal research is matched by the strong emphasis of his work on modern pedagogic methods and teaching innovation.
He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has led across a range of institutions on learning and teaching, student experience and student welfare, including most recently as Associate Head of School for Student Experience across the Social Sciences, Media & Communications, History and Law departments at Goldsmiths (in addition to his Head of Law role there).
Reflecting on his new appointment in an interview with City St George’s news, Professor Giannoulopoulos shared:
“I am delighted to be joining The City Law School as the new Head of the Law Department, Academic programmes.
“For the prior seven years, I was fortunate to lead on a very successful project at Goldsmiths, University of London, as the Inaugural Professor of Law, with the mandate and unique opportunity to design and launch the Department of Law there, and now feel deeply energised about joining The City Law School and contributing to its success, both present and future, as a leading Law School in the UK.
“Both nationally and internationally, in learning and teaching, the student experience, public engagement and legal research - building on the exciting range of academic programmes offered - and the distinguished faculty, whose research confronts some of the biggest challenges of our time, shaping public policy through a harmonious integration of legal theory and legal practice.
“The School is uniquely placed to offer an unparalleled experience to its students and a fulfilling academic practice to its members of staff.
Professor Giannoulopoulos also remarked on the importance of empathy in his approach, and fostering collaboration with partners and emotional intelligence in our students:
“I have always taken as my key priority having an empathetic relationship with colleagues and students - listening to them, understanding, acting with them, celebrating their success - and cannot wait to meet them and start working closely together.
“I am particularly looking forward to operating with my new colleagues and students from within the world-class educational facilities in the Law School building.
“We will provide it even further momentum as a dynamic Hub that will organically generate outstanding synergies between academic research, law policy, and legal practice. For the benefit, not only of our student communities, but to also empower us to develop cross-disciplinary links with fellow academics across the University and connect with our local community, including, importantly, young people in schools across the capital (and beyond) who have the appetite to be exposed to the big debates of our times; from climate justice, migratory movements and populist attacks on the rule of law to the relationship between business and human rights, legal regulation of the rapid proliferation of AI, law and the medical ethics of the future or the enforcement of EU law on global social media giants.
"We will open up and warmly welcome to the City Law School building the law firms, legal and political institutions, NGOs and charities, the civil service and governmental organisations, and broader Law-relating professions that are situated just a stone’s throw away from us. We will continuously learn from them, as a vibrant community of experts (and Law students), and instinctively share with them our pioneering research that starts from legal theory, then interconnects with legal practice and has the capacity to redefine the professions.
“It is equally electrifying to think of the opportunities that we will have to immerse our students into legal London.
“To name but a few examples: continuing to make contextual and experiential learning an integral part of our degrees, investing in emotional intelligence, expanding our students’ networks including with our second-to-none Law alumni, enriching their legal practice awareness, and their capacity to interact with modern technologies used in the field."
In a direct address to The City Law School’s students, Professor Giannoulopoulos expressed:
“Regardless of whether you are doing the three-year LLB or more focussed Graduate Diploma in Law, Graduate Entry LLB or one of our forward-looking Master of Laws, your experience at City St George’s should be nothing less than transformative, through the places you will have explored and the people you will have learnt, and taken inspiration, from.
“The pro bono clinics at the Community Legal Advice Centre and Law-In-Real-Life initiative in the Law department are perfect illustrations of this approach, and I am joining with a strong determination, and huge enthusiasm, to help build on these foundations. Leading from the front, as part of a great team, with the aim to further advance the distinctiveness of our programmes and student and staff experience.