Barasha Borthakur shares her PhD thesis ideas.
Barasha Borthakur (Laws PhD, current student) shares her research ideas: "I am an Intellectual Property PhD student with a Herchel Smith scholarship award at Centre for Commercial and Legal Studies, School of Law, Queen Mary University of London. I started my PhD in 2020.
In QMUL, I research on green intellectual property and climate change law under the supervision of Professor Uma Suthersanen (CCLS Professor of Global Intellectual Property Law) and Professor Duncan Matthews (Professor of Intellectual Property Law). I am researching whether climate mitigation technologies can be considered a ‘public good’ and climate change as ‘national emergency’ to construe under intellectual property law and non-intellectual property flexibilities in a way to include environmentally sound technologies.
The PhD programme at Queen Mary University is driven by subject specific research and the QMIPRI is one of the world's biggest IP research institutes. The PhD programme has proven fruitful, yet difficult. It not only improves your research skills, but it also broadens your viewpoint. Starting the PhD in a pandemic was very tough but the cohort and professors have helped a lot. The QMIPRI has organised various research seminars to share our research works, there were a number of staff seminars as well as research paper swaps. The doctoral college separately organised various skill development programmes and productive seminars which includes writing retreats, productivity related seminars, mental health related seminars etc.
During my PhD studies I have been involved with a lot of projects and roles, such as working as a Graduate Teaching Associate for the Global Intellectual Property Law at CCLS, where I teach Global IP to the LLM students. I also acted as a Co-Convenor of QMIPRI Research Associate/ Doctoral Seminars and QM IP Reading Group and a Mentor at the 2021 Hilary’s Term Oxford Climate Society at the University of Oxford. I am currently a Deputy Articles Editor for the Queen Mary Law Journal, which is a peer-reviewed legal periodical, edited by PhD students in the School of Law.
You can read more about my research and get in touch on my profile page.
Previously I completed my BA, LLB (Hons.) from National Law University and Judicial Academy, Assam (2014-2019) with international law and constitutional law as my specialisation. I was an active member of the Centre for Child Rights where I volunteered, organised various seminars and workshops in collaboration with UNICEF. I have completed my LLM in IPR from National Law University, Jodhpur (2019-2020) where I was the recipient of ‘Late Smt. Vandana Devendra Mehta Memorial’ gold medal for securing the first position in merit (the highest CGPA holder).
Apart from researching, in my free time I love to paint, bake and doodle law illustrations/comics.