Professor Lieberwitz reports on her international research

Anti-Discrimination Standards of the International Labor Organization: A Focus on Equality for Women

I will present this paper at a conference on "International Labor Standards, Rights, and Beyond," which will be held at Stanford Law School on August 14-15, 2009. This conference hosted by Stanford Law Professor William Gould, will focus on the development of international labor standards and rights. The topics that speakers will address include country-specific labor programs linking trade and labor rights, the role of the World Trade Organization and the International Labor Organization, and private codes of conduct established by corporations and negotiated by NGOs. Learn more about the conference and featured speakers.

Changing Concepts of Faculty Work: Assessing the U.K.'s Research Assessment Exercise

This project expands my work on the corporatization of the university and academic freedom to a comparative level by studying patterns in the U.S. and U.K. of changes in concepts of faculty work. In particular, I will study the UK's "Research Assessment Exercise" (RAE). The RAE was implemented in 1986 as a method of allocating public research funding to universities on the basis of evaluations of the quality of research produced by faculty. The enforcement of the RAE through national ratings of research submitted to national assessment panels raises questions concerning the way the RAE may shape university and faculty priorities. My research will address questions of whether the RAE has an impact on academic freedom and professional identity by shaping faculty choices about the types of research they will pursue, the subject and content of their research, and the methods used in carrying out the research.

Women and Trade Union Leadership

This project is a comparative research study of women's leadership in US and UK unions. Women make up a significant proportion of union membership – 40 per cent in the US and over 50 per cent in the UK.  Further, more women than men are joining in both countries. This study aims to provide a comparative in-depth study of women's union leadership experiences in the US and the UK. The study is being done in partnership with scholars from Queen Mary College University of London (under a Leverhulme Trust grant), ILR Extension faculty (including Director of Labor Programs Sally Alvarez), and faculty from the Rutgers University Center for Women and Work.

Social Law and the Working Poor

I will present a paper on this topic in July 2009 at the International Seminar on Comparative Labour Law, Industrial Relations, and Social Security, at the Center for Comparative Labor Law and Social Security, of the University Montesquieu Bordeaux IV, France.  In this International Seminar, scholars from different countries present papers on the same theme, but from the perspective of his/her country.

Professor Risa Lieberwitz's profile can also be viewed online.