Contact
Biography
Richard Hyde joined the School of Law at the University of Nottingham as an Assistant Professor in January 2013 and became an Associate Professor in August 2016 and has been Professor of Law, Regulation and Governance since August 2019. He was Deputy Head of School (Education and Student Experience) between August 2020 and July 2023. He previously lectured at Northumbria University. He has an LLB (Hons) from the University of Durham and a LLM in International Criminal Justice and Armed Conflict and a MA in Socio-Legal and Criminological Research Methods from the University of Nottingham. He is currently the Co-Director of Undergraduate Studies in the School of Law and the academic director of the University's Pathways to Law project, which is funded by the Sutton Trust and the Legal Education Foundation, and seeks to encourage sixth form students to aspire to a career in the law. In 2015 he was awarded a University of Nottingham Dearing Award for outstanding achievements in enhancing the student learning experience. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He currently teaches courses concerning tort, contract and consumer law in the School of Law, and food regulation in Biosciences.
Richard's Ph.D research, which was conducted at the University of Nottingham and funded by the ESRC, examined the protection of consumers in the context of incidents of food-borne illness.His book, Regulating Food-borne Illness was published by Hart in August 2015.. He has published on general consumer and food law issues. He is a member of the leadership team for the University's flagship Future Foods Research Beacon. He is currently involved in a project which examines the use of whistleblowing disclosures by regulatory bodies, and has used this work to contribute to the current debate on the future direction of whistleblowing protection. His work on whistleblowing was favourably cited by the National Audit Office in their report on disclosures to regulators. He is also interested in civil liability, and is a Associate Editor of Charlesworth and Percy on Negligence.
Richard is interested in business and public engagement, and has given training to small and medium sized businesses and has appeared on Rip-off Britain, Food Detectives, Supermarket Shopping Secrets, Tricks of the Restaurant Trade and Supershoppers talking about food law issues. He is currently involved in a project that uses a virtual reality game to increase the awareness of food hygiene requirements.
Richard is a non-practising solicitor. In practise, he worked for Browne Jacobson LLP. His practise focused on Risk and Regulation, and he represented a number of large businesses and public authorities. He has experience in advising clients on food safety and food standards matters, providing advice prior to product launch, aimed at minimising regulatory risks, and representation during investigation and enforcement action taken by regulatory bodies. Richard has particular expertise in all aspects of branding, advertising and marketing of food products, including packaging and labelling, and with food hygiene regulations. Further, he was responsible for the provision of licensing advice to a number of businesses, and was seconded to a local authority to assist with the implementation of the Licensing Act 2003. He also had experience in advising clients in areas such as environmental law, health and safety and trading standards. During his training contact Richard also experience seats in property and corporate and commercial litigation.
He would be happy to supervise PhD students interested in regulation and governance, particularly those interested in food or consumer protection. Information about the School of Law PhD programme and how to apply can be found here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/law/study/postgraduate-research/index.aspx. Information about scholarships can be found here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/law/study/postgraduate-research/funding.aspx.
He is a member of the University of Nottingham Commercial Law Centre. Information about the Centre can be found here: http://nottingham.ac.uk/clc.
Expertise Summary
Richard's area of expertise is regulation and governance, and particularly the regulation of food and technology.
Teaching Summary
Richard teaches Tort, Advanced Tort, Consumer Protection and Contract on the undergraduate program, and International Consumer Protection on the LLM.
Research Summary
Richard's research interests focus on food and regulation. He is interested in regulatory investigation and enforcement, and has conducted research within local authorities examining the practices of… read more
Selected Publications
Current Research
Richard's research interests focus on food and regulation. He is interested in regulatory investigation and enforcement, and has conducted research within local authorities examining the practices of environmental health officers responsible for responding to breaches of hygiene regulations in outbreak situations. He intends to conduct future research on the enforcement of food law by local authorities, looking at routinely detected breaches of hygiene and standards regulations, rather than the acute breaches, and also examining the regional and national variations of enforcement practice within the EU. He is also interested in regulatory enforcement more generally.
Within food hygiene, Richard is interested in alternative methods of achieving compliance with food hygiene regulations, and has a particular interest in the use of consumer information as a method for increasing compliance. He is currently working on a project that examines how the national food hygiene rating system, also known as 'scores on the doors,' influences the interaction between enforcement officers and food businesses during routine inspections of food business premises. Further, Richard is interested in the implementation of processed based regulation, and particularly HACCP. He is currently working with two American colleagues to consider the potential implementation, and potential challenges for implementation, of HACCP in primary production.
Within food standards, Richard's interests lie in the provision of information to consumers, and the use of information to achieve both regulatory compliance and public policy goals. Developments in labelling, such as the 'traffic light' system, aimed at achieving a reduction in obesity, are of particular interest. Richard is also interested in the developing regulatory framework that applies to information provision to consumers through product labelling, and particularly to health and nutrition claims. Finally, Richard is interested in voluntarily certification and labelling schemes, and the role they play in the regulation and governance of food.
Along with a colleague, Richard is currently engaged in a project which examines the role played by whistleblowing disclosures in regulatory decision-making. He is also interested in the role played by insurance in regulation and in the regulation of advertising and marketing, and in particular the role of the Advertising Standards Agency.