Rate My Professor Michael Harker

Professor Michael Harker, PhD, is Head of the Department of Law at Queen Mary University of London, a position he assumed on 1 November 2023 shortly after joining the institution in October 2023. Previously, he was a faculty member at the University of East Anglia (UEA) Law School from September 2002, achieving promotion to Professor in 2013. At UEA, he served as Director of Research from 2015 to 2022 and Head of School from August 2022 until his departure. Harker is a founding member of the UEA Centre for Competition Policy and holds membership in the AHRC Peer Review College. His research has received funding from bodies including the ESRC, the Department of Business, Ofcom, and UKERC, notably for a project examining energy regulation and net zero objectives.

Harker's research specializations include regulation, competition law, and media law, with ongoing work addressing the future of energy regulation, political campaigning in the digital sphere, and due impartiality in broadcasting. He is open to supervising PhD students in competition law, media law, and energy regulation. His key peer-reviewed publications, several of which were submitted to REF2021, encompass “Statutory duties and shaping the decision-making of an economic regulator: insights from the energy regulation community past and present” (with David Reader), Journal of Law and Society, 49(1), 118-150 (2022); “Political advertising revisited: digital campaigning and protecting democratic discourse”, Legal Studies, 40(1), 151-171 (2019); “‘Moving in concentric circles’? The history and politics of press inquiries” (with John Street and Samuel Cross), Legal Studies, 37(2), 248-278 (2017); “Universal service obligations and the liberalization of network industries: taming the Chimera?” (with Nadine Kreutzmann-Gallasch), European Competition Journal, 12(2-3), 236-276 (2016); “Regulatory Gaming, Myopia and Ineptitude? Ofcom's Intervention in the UK Pay-TV Market”, Journal of Media Law, 6(1), 121-148 (2014); “EU competition law as a tool for dealing with regulatory failure: the broadband margin squeeze cases”, Journal of Business Law, 817-841 (2013); “Judicial Review of Merger Decisions in the EC, Germany and UK: Comparative perspectives” (with Julian Wright and Lars Peyer), International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 60(1), 93-124 (2011); and “The transformation of broadcasting: public service broadcasting, the BBC and the distortion of new media markets”, Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 62(4), 553-568 (2011). These contributions explore regulatory challenges, economic decision-making, and policy impacts in media and competition domains.