The UNSW Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation to close in 2024
The UNSW Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation will cease operations on Saturday, 1 June 2024. The closure marks the end of a successful six-year partnership between UNSW Law & Justice and Allens, an international law firm.
“We wish to express our sincere gratitude for Allens’ invaluable support for the UNSW Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation over six years,” said Professor Andrew Lynch, Dean, UNSW Law & Justice.
“The UNSW Allens Hub partnership enriched our research and education while driving leading reforms in technology, law, and legal practice through active engagement with the legal profession, the judiciary, industry, government, and the broader community. We benefited not only from Allens’ support, but also their insights from professional practice.”
Professor Lyria Bennett Moses, Director of the UNSW Allens Hub, echoed this gratitude.
“With Allens’ commitment to the Hub, we have created a large and diverse community of scholars who have a shared passion for high quality research with real impact at the law/technology interface. In the last six years, through research and engagement with policy and public audiences, we have changed both minds and policies,” she said.
Among its accomplishments:
- Building a community of 50 researchers
- Supporting publication of over 350 works, including books, chapters, articles and reports
- Securing government and industry funding for cyber security law and policy research
- Partnerships to improve government and judicial practices with respect to technology
- Cross-disciplinary collaboration to progress understanding on data justice challenges
- 86 policy submissions to government, parliamentary committees and law reform projects
Professor Bennett Moses continues, “Allens’ support of the Hub has generated significant energy across UNSW, but especially in the Faculty of Law & Justice, around legal issues at the technological frontier and the impact that research in this area can have on policy. It has created a culture of collaboration to build flexible and resilient legal and regulatory frameworks and institutions that accommodate ongoing change and encourage appropriate innovation, while providing appropriate governance and oversight and promoting important values and human rights. In addition, the Hub’s research has fuelled changes in the curriculum to better prepare the next generation of legal practitioners to use technology appropriately and ethically.
“We are immensely thankful to Allens for supporting our academics, students and research that drives considered reform of law, and legal practice."
"Allens has been proud to be associated with the Hub and the work of its researchers, and we've enjoyed the opportunity to connect the Hub's important research with the corporate world," said Allens Managing Partner Richard Spurio.
"We commend the Hub on the really important contribution it has made to academic thinking and policy debate about the role of the law in our rapidly changing digital economy and society," added Allens Partner and head its Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice, Gavin Smith.
"We at Allens wish in particular to thank Professor Bennett Moses for her incredible energy in leading the hub and fostering such an impressive culture of academic excellence at the Hub."
“Whilst our journey together with the UNSW Allens Hub has drawn to a close, we thank Allens for their long-standing collaboration with UNSW Law & Justice,” said David Gonski AC, Chancellor, UNSW Sydney. “We look forward to future opportunities where Allens and UNSW can together continue to make a lasting positive impact on our community and the world,” he said.
The UNSW Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation commenced in November 2017 and is led by UNSW Law & Justice Professor Lyria Bennett Moses as Director and Associate Professor Katharine Kemp as Deputy Director.