Professor Ting Xu

Biography

Ting Xu joined the School of Law at the University of Essex in July 2020. She holds an LLB from Sun Yat-sen University and an LLM (with Distinction) and PhD from the London School of Economics. She was a Senior Lecturer at the School of Law, University of Sheffield (2015-2020), a Lecturer at the School of Law, Queen’s University, Belfast (2012–2015) and a Research Fellow at the London School of Economics (2009–2012) on an interdisciplinary and collaborative European Research Council funded project. Ting is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). She has convened modules including Land Law and Contemporary Issues in Property Law (Queen’s University Belfast) and Property Law (Land Law, Equity and Trusts) and Commercial Property in a Global Context (University of Sheffield). At Essex Law School, she is currently teaching Land Law, Legal Research Skills (module convenor), and Comparative Law (including comparative property law). Ting's research is interdisciplinary, focusing on socio-legal and comparative aspects of property law; law, development and governance; Chinese law; and political economy. Ting would welcome research proposals in these areas. Ting is the author and editor of three books: The Revival of Private Property and Its Limits in Post-Mao China (Wildy, Simmonds and Hill Publishing, 2014), Property and Human Rights in a Global Context (edited with Jean Allain, Hart Publishing, 2015) and Legal Strategies for the Development and Protection of Communal Property, Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 216 (edited with Alison Clarke, Oxford University Press, 2018). In 2012, Ting was awarded a British Academy Conference Grant (with Patrick O’Brien) for organising an international conference on knowledge formation and the history of books. In 2015 she completed a project on declining diversity and the global economy funded by the European Commission, Joint Research Centre. In 2017 She completed a project 'Diversifying Ownership of Land?: Communal Property in the UK and China' funded by the British Academy International Mobility and Partnership Scheme 2014-17. She founded and led a 'communal property research network' including 41 scholars from 13 countries . In 2017 she also completed a project on the Land Rights Reform in Rural China funded by China's National Social Science Foundation (2015-2017) (as Co Investigator; PI, Professor Fengzhang Li, School of Law, Shanghai University). She was a British Academy Mid-Career Fellow (2019-2020) working on a project on 'Harold Laski and His Chinese Disciples: Using Biographical Methods to Study the Evolution of Rights in Republican China (1911-1949)'. She is currently a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellow from January-December 2025. Ting has been appointed as a visiting senior fellow at the Dickson Poon School of Law at King’s College London; a visiting fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies; a visiting senior fellow at LSE Law School; a visiting fellow at the Centre for Law and Society, School of Law & Politics, Cardiff University; a visiting professor at the School of Law, Jilin University; and a visiting professor at the Graduate School, University of International Business and Economics in China. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA). She is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College and a member of the UKRI Talent Peer Review College. Ting has provided consultancy to the Scottish Land Commission, Global Witness, Friends of the Earth Europe, and the European Commission.

Qualifications

• PhD London School of Economics, (2009)

• LLM London School of Economics, (2005)

• LLB Sun Yat-sen University, (2004)

Appointments

University of Essex

• Professor, Law, University of Essex (7/7/2020 - present)