The Office of the Vice-Dean, Research at the Common Law Section has established internal Excellence Awards to recognize the role of dedicated teaching, sustained and creative research and generous service to the community, the University and the Faculty of Law in strengthening the institution and raising our public profile. Among those, the Emerging Researcher Award is awarded annually to a member of the faculty who has earned distinction as a result of the importance and exceptional characteristics of his or her research work. The nominee must hold a full-time tenured or tenure track position at the Faculty. At the time of nomination, the nominee must have completed at least two years, but less than seven years as a full-time professor at the University of Ottawa or elsewhere. Candidates must be nominated by their peer professors.
Dr. Martin-Bariteau started at uOttawa just two and a half years ago, on September 1st, 2016, as a Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Law and Technology within the Common Law Section at the Faculty of Law, with a joint appointment as the director of the university-wide Centre for Law, Technology and Society. He was nominated by world leading-law and technology scholars Profs. Marina Pavlović, Teresa Scassa, Michael Geist and Ian Kerr.
In his announcement, the Vice-Dean, Research noted “Florian Martin-Bariteau’s list of accomplishments demonstrates a marathon of research activity. Yet it is the quality and diversity of his outputs that merit this award. The quality would be impressive from a senior colleague, even more so from someone at such an early career stage.”
His research contributions have been widely acknowledged in the rapidly evolving areas of innovation and technology law and policy, with particular emphasis on trademarks, whistleblowing, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and blockchain. His 2017 book, Le droit de marque, was shortlisted in the Top 3 for the Walter-Owen Prize, which recognizes Canada’s best legal publications. Outputs from his SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grant on Whistleblowers are widely referenced, providing the first comprehensive coverage of the topic in Canada. In the past months, Dr. Martin-Bariteau became one of Canada’s leading voices on the legal implications regarding blockchain, and has been featured in national and international media. He notably launched BLCKCHN.CA, the first Canadian socio-legal hub focussing on the law, ethics and policy of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, and created an innovative and bilingual course on “Blockchain, Law and Society” – another first in Canada.
Beyond his research and teaching record, the nomination letter also highlighted Dr. Martin-Bariteau’s leadership role at the Centre. In just two years, he transformed the interdisciplinary research group into an internationally-acclaimed research centre. Under his guidance, Canada’s leading research hub researching the law, ethics and policy around technology welcomed nine new Faculty members, nine associated members, as well as various Fellows. Recently, Dr. Martin-Bariteau’s transformative leadership was highlighted in the Biennial Research Report of the Common Law Section, his faculty home at uOttawa, but also in others including the Civil Law Section.
Moreover, Dr. Martin-Bariteau is involved in many committees and initiatives at the Faculty and at the University-level. Last year, he was the recipient of the Common Law Distinctive Service Faculty Award in recognition of his outstanding service and significant contribution to both the student community and the Faculty.
Congratulations Dr. Martin-Bariteau!