Amanda Warren-Jones

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Last updated 24th March 2026

Amanda joined Huddersfield University in November 2018, having previously worked at Sheffield University Law School where she was: the Founding Director of a Cross-Faculty LLM in European Health Law and Policy, spanning Law, Medicine and the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR); as well as being the Founding Director of the Sheffield Health Law and Policy Research Centre (SHLaP) before it was merged with Sheffield's Institute of Biotechnology, Law and Ethics (SIBLE) and Amanda became the Director.

Prior to working at Sheffield University, Amanda worked at Liverpool University Law School having come from Cardiff University Law School, where she graduated with an LLB(Hons) Law Degree and gained the Hill Taylor Dickinson Prize for outstanding achievement in Commercial and Maritime Law. Amanda became a Postgraduate Lecturer while doing her PhD and obtained a Postgraduate Certificate in Advanced Ethics and Genetics at Gofferborderji Nijmegen. Amanda published her first book in 2001, Patenting rDNA - Human and Animal Biotechnology in the UK and Europe (Lawtext Publishing), which was favourably reviewed in the International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law Journal (IIC/GRUR), and gained her PhD in 2003 for a thesis entitled Taming Scary Monsters with Morality: an assessment of the morality criterion in European and UK Patent Law in the context of Human and Animal Biotechnology, which was externally examined by Prof Roger Brownsword, Professor of Law at Kings College London. In the same year, Amanda gained a Distinction in the Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and holds two commendations from Sheffield's Teaching Quality and Standard's Committee: 2015 for Equity and Trusts at MA Level; and 2011 for Intellectual Property: Patents, Trade Secrets and Branding at Level 3, LLB(Hon) Law Degrees.

Amanda's published work was referenced by the President of the European Patent Office and her PhD provided the basis for key aspects in his consideration of the morality of Human Embryonic Stem Cells (G2/06) on the referral from the Enlarged Board of Appeal in the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation patent case. Amanda's editorials are helping to shape debates in health, medicine and intellectual property and her research continues to be cited in international research publications, as well as in textbooks and module materials in the UK.

My reputation is for doctrinal, multi-disciplinary critical analysis focused on innovation regulation (patents, IP (overlapping with Competition Law, Confidentiality and Public Law) interfaced with science and medicine. My research extends to broader regulation and governance across the whole lifecycle (such as funding; regulatory impact assessments; ATMP; market authorisation, pharmacovigilance, etc.), focusing upon a holistic understanding of principles, processes and outcomes. My work originally focused on the public interest normatively understood (through morality, ethics, jurisprudential debates on morality in law and context-based literature) and extended into a descriptive interpretation exploring the nexus between different interpretations of public interests (through regulatory and public administration discourses on economic/market-based theories and collaborative governance) and now exploring homogeneity between public and private interests (countering the accepted understanding of opposing interests).

My most recent research adopts a broader interpretation of law as decision-making flowing from human mental processing and embedded norms (relating law to cognitive science, psychology, sociology, communication studies, morality, ethics, etc.), which has implications for the legal profession, as well as the development and regulation of AI, robotics and cybernetics. It is this focus which informs the continuing development of my research.