Dr Francina Cantatore
Fellow
- Bio/Profile
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Canatore’s primary interests lie in legal education, technology, copyright law and intellectual property (IP) law. Her PhD (2012) was an interdisciplinary empirical study, titled: “Negotiating a changing landscape: Authors, Copyright and the Digital Evolution”, which investigated the relationship between authors and publishers and perceptions of copyright in the digital sphere. She has since published extensively in the areas of copyright law, law and technology, intellectual property (IP) law, legal education, and more recently on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on IP regulation. Her most recent journal article was on the topic of creativity in relation to artificial intelligence, considered from the intellectual property perspective. She also recently reported on a blockchain case study in property law teaching.
Her legal education publications explore practice-based solutions to promote employability skills and experiential learning for law students, as well as investigating the positive benefits of incorporating pro bono service and access to justice initiatives in higher education. She has been involved in comparative research projects with academics in the UK, South Africa and Chile and is currently the project leader of an Australian/UK study on clinical legal education. Recently she was the chief investigator in a Queensland Law Society funded project on the job readiness of newly admitted solicitors. In her copyright research she questions whether current copyright regulations provide adequate protection of authors’ rights and investigate the impact of technology on intellectual property rights.
She has been a full-time academic for the past 11 years and a legal practitioner for more than 25 years. Her publications include four books, several book chapters and submissions to government and international bodies, and 32 peer-reviewed journal articles. She has a strong interest in interdisciplinary research in her areas of interest and is committed to promoting community interests in leadership roles, both in law and the creative arts. She has previously served on the Executive Board of the Queensland Writers Centre (QWC) for a period of three years, where she made significant contributions as a legal practitioner with expertise in copyright law, and remains an active member of the QWC. She has also been a member of the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) for the past ten years. In Law she is a current Executive Board Member of the Australasian Law Academics Association where she is involved in advocacy, policy development and international engagement in legal education.
She currently holds leadership roles within Bond University, as Associate Dean of Research and Director of the Bond Legal Clinics Program. In addition, she is an Executive Member of the Academic Senate and a Board Member of Bond University Ltd. She has been awarded an Australian National Citation for Excellence in Teaching as well as an international Lexis Nexis Award for Excellence in Teaching.
She is founding co-editor of the Australian Journal of Clinical Education.
