George Joseph Bell Summer Scholarships

Regulations for George Joseph Bell Summer Scholarships

Purpose

The George Joseph Bell Summer Scholarships provide funding for eligible students to carry out and write up a small piece of original research on any area of Scottish private law (eg contract, delict, family law or property law). 

The scholarships are named after the institutional writer, George Joseph Bell (1770-1843). 

Successful applicants will develop basic research skills which will be of value during the rest of their LLB as well as in postgraduate work or work undertaken as members of the legal profession.

Eligibility

Applications for a scholarship are limited to those who, in academic year 2025/26, are students at a Scottish university and are either –

• in their second or third year of study for the four-year Honours degree of LLB, or
• in their first year of study for the two-year graduate Ordinary degree of LLB.

In either case the LLB must have a significant Scots law component.

Timing and duration

The scholarships are available for a period of not less than four and not more than six weeks during the period from June to August 2026. A week for this purpose is 35 hours. The weeks do not need to be consecutive, and each block of 35 hours can be spread over more than one calendar week. 

Amount 

The amount of the scholarship is £441 per week which will be paid weekly in arrears. 

 
Research proposal

Applications must be accompanied by a proposal giving an outline of the research which is to be undertaken. A brief reading list should be included. The research proposal should take as its starting-point a quotation from one of the works written by George Joseph Bell, such as Principles of the Law of Scotland or Commentaries on the Laws of Scotland and on the Principles of Mercantile Jurisprudence. Both works are available for consultation and downloading at our Old Studies in Scots Law page of this website. A suggested length for the research proposal is one or two pages. Examples of successful research proposals for this Scholarship in previous years are available here.

Finding a supervisor

The research requires to be supervised by a law academic staff member at a Scottish university (which will usually but need not be the university at which the applicant is enrolled). The application form asks for the name of the supervisor. Applicants will need to identify a suitable person to act as supervisor and to obtain that person’s agreement.

Outcomes

Successful applicants are required to write up their research in a short paper and to submit the paper to the Edinburgh Legal Education Trust at the end of their period of study. No length is stipulated but, by way of guidance, a paper of 5,000 words, fully referenced with footnotes rather than end-notes, will usually be sufficient. Any referencing style is permitted, although it is advised that OSCOLA or the Edinburgh Law Review House Style is used. The Trustees may thereafter encourage publication of the paper on the scholarship website. Examples of research papers which have been written by holders of the Scholarship are available.

Decision on applications

The Trustees will communicate their decision on applications by not later than 20 April 2026. Up to four scholarships may be awarded. The Trustees reserve full discretion to offer, or not to offer, a scholarship.

Other sources of funding

Vacation scholarships are also offered by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland.

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