Strengthening Singapore's leadership in digital transformation while advancing a 'smart nation' vision that fosters human flourishing for the next century.
We were immensely honoured to welcome The Right Honourable Lord Philip Sales, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and the Yong Pung How Distinguished Visiting Professor, to deliver the Yong Pung How Distinguished Visiting Professorship Lecture 2025 titled The Application of Public Law Values and Principles in Automated Governance.
Our Guest of Honour, Michael McGrath, EU Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, and Consumer Protection, delivered a compelling keynote and offered insights into the EU and Singapore’s strategies for building a trustworthy digital ecosystem.
Alibaba Group, The McCarthy Institute at ASU Law, and the SMU Centre for Digital Law convened an international seminar on “Intellectual Property in Trade and Digital Commerce” at SMU. The event took place in conjunction with IP Week @ SG 2025, whose theme “Ideas to Assets: Innovating in Times of Change” could not have been more timely. The seminar brought together thought leaders from academia, industry, and government worldwide to examine the future of IP in an era of rapid technological shifts.
The largest 4th Computational Legal Studies Workshop 2025 was held at SMU, where leading academics, researchers, and industry practitioners explore how emerging computational techniques such as AI, machine learning, and network science can be applied to the study and practice of law.
The Guest Lecture “Competition Policy as a Driver of Economic Integration – An EU Perspective” featured Ms Inge Bernaerts, Director for Strategy and Policy, Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission, and brought together faculty, practitioners, and students for a fruitful discussion on the role of competition policy in the European Union.
We hosted the third and final session of the AI & IP Colloquium, supported by Google, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific. This culminating session convened 10 distinguished speakers who presented impactful papers on the legal, regulatory, and policy challenges at the intersection of AI and IP.
To advance common research priorities under the strategic partnership between ANU and SMU, this global convening brought together leading academics, industry experts, policymakers, and representatives from international organizations to tackle pressing legal and regulatory challenges in the global digital economy.
We were pleased to partner with the Ministry of Law Singapore to co-organise the Online Harms Symposium (25–27 Sept 2023), bringing together global experts, legal professionals, academics, and community leaders to explore solutions for a safer online world.
Our Vision
The SMU Centre for Digital Law’s vision is to become the premier law and technology research centre in Asia, integrating expertise from law, computer science, and digital humanities. The Centre will bolster Singapore’s position as a leader in digital transformation in Asia and advance the vision of a smart nation that fosters human flourishing. Through world-class contributions in foundational and translational research as well as life-long learning, the Centre will influence global discussions on technology’s societal impact, governance, and regulation.
Jason Grant Allen
Director, Centre for Digital Law
Associate Professor of Law
Digital technologies are at the forefront of almost every live issue in 21st century society. Novel technologies expand the space of what humans are able to do, and in that process expand the problem-space of coordinated human social behaviour. While not the only lever we have, law is the paradigm mode of social coordination and often plays a fundamental background role in shaping the other levers (such as markets and informal social norms). In this way, law and legal studies can play a vital role in digital transformation—identifying the issues that matter and providing an organised, structured framework for both traditional legal and inter/cross-disciplinary research that is both conceptually grounded and pragmatic. In this way, the Centre aims not merely observe and describe technological change, but actively to participate in guiding the evolution of our increasingly digital world.
