Travel and Learning Award for David Jefferson

David’s plan

David will use this Borrin Foundation Travel and Learning Award to travel to two locations in Australia for a period of four weeks in March 2023. During this time, he will visit the School of Law, the Centre for Policy Futures, and the Uniquely Australian Foods Centre at the University of Queensland (UQ); and the School of Law and the Environment and Society Group of the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). The purpose of these visits will be to network with colleagues whose research focusses on the regulation of biodiscovery (i.e., how the components of biodiversity may be appropriately accessed and used for scientific and commercial purposes) and the protection and promotion of Indigenous knowledge. The conversations and experiences he will have at UQ and UNSW will enable him to understand what has worked well and what could be improved upon in recent law reform efforts that Australian and other Pacific region jurisdictions have undertaken. These insights will inform his research on the governance of biodiversity and mātauranga Māori (Māori Indigenous knowledge) in Aotearoa New Zealand.

About David

Dr David J Jefferson (he/him) is a Lecturer at the University of Canterbury School of Law, where he teaches Environmental Law, Land Law, and Intellectual Property courses. David’s research examines how the law sets the terms for human interactions with the world beyond the human, including through the governance of biodiversity, biotechnologies, agricultural crops, and food. His work also investigates how the law can better achieve epistemic justice by protecting Indigenous peoples’ knowledge and taking seriously non-Western epistemologies and ontologies. David’s research sites are in Australasia and Latin America, and he has ongoing projects in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, and the Andean Community countries of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. David holds a PhD in Law from the University of Queensland, a Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Davis, and a Master of Arts in Psychology from Suffolk University. He has received numerous competitive fellowships and grants to support his work, including a United States Fulbright Fellowship, a postdoctoral research fellowship under the Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship “Harnessing Intellectual Property to Build Food Security”, and a University of Queensland Centennial Scholarship.

Grant Amount

$10,000 in 2022-2023 to support travel