Bassem Awad focuses his research at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) on intersections between IP rights and climate change technology innovation. A specialist in IP law, Bassem has served as a judge at the Appeal Court in Egypt, and works as a tutor for the Academy of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and an instructor with the Institute for Training and Technical Co-operation at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). He teaches advanced courses on IP at the Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario, Canada. He also works as a consultant for the African Union (AU) on IP matters.

Bassem holds PhD and LLM degrees in IP Law from the University of Montpellier in France, and an LLM in International Business Law from L’Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He has published several papers on copyright and access to knowledge (A2K), patents and green energy technology innovation, biotechnology and IP, patents and access to medicines, IP and consumer protection, IP in the digital environment and enforcement of IP rights. He is a member of the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property, and serves on the International Editorial Committee of the Les Cahiers de Propriété Intellectuelle in Montreal.

Bassem was a member of the Egypt Team for Open AIR’s precursor network, African Copyright and Access to Knowledge (ACA2K), from 2007 to 2010, and then joined Open AIR at its inception in 2011. He was one of the authors of the ACA2K Egypt Country Report and Executive Policy Brief in 2009, and was a researcher and author of the Open AIR case study published in 2014 as Reflections on the Lack of Biofuel Innovation in Egypt.