EPSRC logo

Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: EP/Y035992/1
Title: Judicial Decision Data Gathering, Encoding and Sharing
Principal Investigator: Windridge, Professor D
Other Investigators:
Dhami, Professor MK
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Faculty of Science & Technology
Organisation: Middlesex University
Scheme: Standard Research - NR1
Starts: 15 January 2024 Ends: 14 January 2026 Value (£): 132,760
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Artificial Intelligence Computational Linguistics
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Information Technologies
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
The overall goal of the CHIST-ERA JuDDGES project is to harness state-of-the-art Natural Language Processing & Human-In-The-Loop technologies to provide legal researchers with new Open software and tools that enable extensive, flexible and on-going meta-annotation capability (both automated and employing domain experts in-the-loop). This capability is applied to legal records/judgments from criminal courts across jurisdictions with varied legal constitutions (Poland, England & Wales).

We hence seek to dissolve barriers of resources, language, data & format inhomogeneity that currently impede research on judicial decision making. In making this new software, tools and data resource open on a public repository, researchers will be empowered to develop and empirically test theories of judicial decision making and address judicial policy and practice-relevant questions. Researchers from public (legal) institutions can also reuse the data for their purposes. The application of Open Science hence also rectifies a substantial gap in the empirical legal research domain that has been slow in adopting Open Science principles. The resulting annotated pan-national dataset & toolset will constitute the largest and most comprehensive open and reusable legal research repository in Europe for research on judicial decision-making.

This project will develop an AI-based solution (tool) that can be used by researchers to examine unstructured textual data in court records and/or written legal judgments. In doing so, we will create the largest extant pan-national legal dataset in Europe. The tool would allow researchers to access and progressively enrich large, detailed, and representative legal samples of data (starting from what we have made available) in a resource- and cost-effective as well as time-efficient way. The datasets so produced and adjusted to Open Science principles and openly available from a trusted data repository, will also be accessible to others for re-use both within and across legal jurisdictions, including the unexpected researcher/user (e.g., from legal institutions). Indeed, the open software & Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) tools that the project will provide will enable non-AI-specialist ECR researchers to interrogate judicial decision data and identify novel lines of research interrogation. The tool and resultant data will thus expand methodological horizons. In the long-term, our project will contribute to a scientific, evidence-based approach to judicial policy and practice in the courts. The project embodies and exemplifies the principles enshrined within Horizon Europe initiatives on open research data, applying Open Science principles and the utilisation of Open Infrastructures.
Key Findings
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Potential use in non-academic contexts
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Impacts
Description This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Summary
Date Materialised
Sectors submitted by the Researcher
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Project URL:  
Further Information:  
Organisation Website: http://www.mdx.ac.uk