In an accomplishment demonstrating the world-class caliber of Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s (HBKU) academic faculty, Associate Professor of Law at HBKU’s College of Law and Public Policy (CLPP), Dr. Damilola S. Olawuyi, was awarded the Herbert Smith Freehills Visitor Scheme at the Cambridge Faculty of Law in the United Kingdom.

Dr. Olawuyi, who has practiced and taught law across Europe, North America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and whose most recent publications include “The Human Rights-Based Approach to Carbon Finance,” is thereby honored as a notable scholar in the legal field. As part of CLPP, he is part of a dynamic legal training program that focuses on interdisciplinary discourse and systematic learning within an innovative educational environment that produces consistent research outputs among both faculty and student researchers. 

During his visit, that is set to commence in May 2019, Dr. Olawuyi will join the ranks of distinguished academics from around the world, who are provided with financial support by the international law firm, Herbert Smith Freehills, during their residency at the Cambridge Faculty of Law. The schedule thus aims to facilitate high-quality interaction between legal academics and practitioners through collaborative academic research. Visiting scholars are often invited to speak at the law firm’s London headquarters.

Remarking on the prestigious award, Dr. Olawuyi said: “I am delighted to receive the Herbert Smith Freehills Visiting Professorship at Cambridge. This visit will allow me to work collaboratively, not just with colleagues within the Cambridge Law Faculty who are engaged in energy and environmental law research, but also with other colleagues across the University of Cambridge who have expertise in these areas, thereby opening up new opportunities for institutional collaboration. I look forward to the high-level brainstorming, dialogue and scholarly exchange that a visit of this kind will undoubtedly provide.” 

During this visit, Dr. Olawuyi will undertake comparative and collaborative evaluation of law, governance and contractual aspects of structuring, financing, designing and operating public-private energy infrastructure projects in the Gulf region, with the aim to draw lessons from the United Kingdom’s public private partnerships (PPP) framework. This research is timely, relevant, addresses an area of national and international priority, and fits within HBKU’s global research goals of providing a hub for cutting edge energy and sustainability research. 

HBKU’s CLPP is today emerging as the Gulf’s pre-eminent legal training program provider owing to both its Juris Doctor program, which is a first for the region, as well as its world-renowned quality of faculty members. It has amassed an impressive resume of accomplishments and research outcomes in the academic year 2017-2018 and projects new successes to follow during the upcoming academic year, slated to begin in September