Oxford University has announced that Prof Judith Freedman has been made chair in taxation law - the first post of its kind in the UK.

Currently in the law department at the London School of Economics, Prof Freedman will start in October. The post will be funded by professional services firm KPMG.

Prof Freedman has been with the LSE since 1982, first as lecturer, then senior lecturer, and from 1996 as reader before becoming a professor.

She also had a three-year secondment to the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London from 1989-92.

Apart from her academic work Prof Freedman has been involved in numerous high-profile committees in the tax and law worlds.

She is a member of the Law Society's Company Law Committee, which has had a major influence on the reform of company law and the Government's own Company Law Review.

Prof Freedman will lead the design of a broadly-based corporate taxation law course for the graduate Bachelor of Civil Law and Magister Juris degrees. The initiative is also seen as the first step towards establishing tax law as a significant option in the undergraduate law course.

Ian Barlow, head of tax and legal services at KPMG, said: "The whole point about this chair is to raise awareness and widen the appeal of taxation law as an academic discipline and to encourage bright students to take up taxation as a career."