Stavroula Karapapa

Professor Stavroula Karapapa serves as Dean of Partnerships (Research) at Essex Law School, University of Essex, where she joined in 2020 as Professor of Intellectual Property and Information Law. Her academic leadership includes current role as Dean of Partnerships (2025-present), previous appointments as Acting Faculty Dean of Research for Arts & Humanities (2024 and 2023), Director of Research (2023-2024), and Director of Research for the School of Law (2022).

Her academic qualifications include a PhD and LLM from Brunel University London, and an LLB from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Prior to Essex, she held the Chair of Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Reading and was Deputy Director of the Intellectual Property, Internet and Media Research Centre at Brunel Law School. She is also a Greek-qualified Barrister (Athens Bar) and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Professor Karapapa's research focuses on the legal challenges posed by digital technologies, particularly in intellectual property law. Her work examines copyright law in digital environments, legal regulation of networked systems, big data governance, and AI implications. She takes a distinctive socio-legal and comparative approach, often analyzing law at interdisciplinary intersections. Her scholarship addresses how information technology both shapes and is shaped by legal frameworks.

Her publications reveal consistent expertise in copyright defenses, mass digitization, private copying, and emerging AI copyright issues. Major works include 'Defences to Copyright Infringement' (OUP, 2020), 'Copyright and Mass Digitization' (OUP, 2013), and 'Private Copying' (Routledge, 2012), along with her innovative textbook 'Intellectual Property Law' (OUP, 2019).

• Editor-in-Chief of European Trade Mark Reports (Sweet & Maxwell)
• Correspondent for Kluwer EU Copyright Cases
• Adjunct Professor at University of London (PGLaws)
• Visiting research fellow at Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (2020/21)

Professor Karapapa actively supervises doctoral research, currently guiding Tahircan Yedek's PhD in Law. She has provided expert consultation to the UK Intellectual Property Office and European Commission on copyright law reform since 2012, with her work cited in UK Intellectual Property Office draft legislation, Opinions of the Advocate General, and official reports from the European Commission, Canadian Privacy Commissioner, and US Copyright Office.