Dr. Bassem Awad is a Faculty member at the Centre for Law, Technology and Society, the Director of the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) and an Associate Professor of Law within the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section at the University of Ottawa.
Dr. Bassem Awad’s scholarship, teaching and policy engagement focus on the intersection of intellectual property, technology law, innovation policies, with particular emphasis on artificial intelligence and data governance; intellectual property and digital entrepreneurship; patent and access to medicines; and climate justice and green technology innovation.
Prior to joining the University of Ottawa, Dr. Awad was an Assistant Professor at Western University Faculty of Law, where he served as Director of the Area of Concentration in Intellectual Property, Information, and Technology Law. He founded the Western Intellectual Property and Innovation Legal Clinic (WIPILC) and served as its Faculty Director since its inauguration. His institutional leadership has combined legal scholarship, policy development, and experiential education to advance access to knowledge, innovation governance, and public interest engagement in technology law.
A former Judge at the Courts of Appeal in Egypt and Abu Dhabi and a government consultant, Dr. Awad brings extensive international legal and policy expertise to his academic work. Since 2021, he has served as Chair and Coordinator of the Intellectual Property Taskforce at the African Scientific Research and Innovation Council (ASRIC) of the African Union, supporting policy development and capacity-building initiatives across the continent. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Academy of the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva since 2010 and has advised governments, international organizations, and regional institutions on intellectual property strategies, technical assistance, and knowledge transfer for policymakers, diplomats and trade officials, and industry stakeholders across Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Canada.
Prior to joining Western Law, Dr. Awad served as Deputy Director for Intellectual Property Law and Innovation at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), where he led research and policy initiatives on intellectual property, technology governance, and innovation policy.
Dr. Awad has led and contributed to several large -scale interdisciplinary research projects funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), including Destination Horizon, Insight, and Partnership grants. He is also a member of the Open African Innovation Research Network (Open AIR) at the University of Ottawa and has contributed to multiple collaborative research and policy initiatives.
Dr. Awad’s primary research interests focus on the governance of intellectual property and innovation, including the implications of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data on intellectual property norms and privacy laws. His research projects span climate justice and intellectual property, digital entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems, patents and access to medicines, collaborative innovation frameworks such as patent pledges and patent pools, intellectual property in preferential trade agreements, and the strategic management and commercialization of intellectual property assets.
Dr. Awad holds a Ph.D. and LL.M. in Intellectual Property Law and Information Technology from the University of Montpellier (France), an LL.M. in International Business Law from Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, and completed postdoctoral fellowship at Western University Faculty of Law. He regularly collaborates with governments, international and regional organizations, and academic institutions on legal and policy questions relating to intellectual property, innovation strategies, and technology governance.
Dr. Awad teaches, publishes and supervises graduate students in both English and French.