About
Emeritus Professor Stephen Saxby is former Professor of IT Law and Public Policy at Southampton Law School within the University of Southampton. He served as a member of the academic staff from 1977 until his retirement in 2016, teaching and researching in IT Law throughout this period.
In 1980, he launched the first Undergraduate LLB IT Law course in Britain in Computer Law. In 1991 he added an LLM module in EU IT Law, which subsequently developed into a focus on Internet Law. Then from 2010-2016, alongside Professor Ian Lloyd, he ran a distance learning LLM in IT & Telecoms Law.
Research
Research interests
- IT Law and Public Policy
- Legal issues in digital mapping
- Legal regulation of Digital identity
- E-Government and Information Policy regulation
- Computer Law
Current research
Within his research expertise he responds to requests from others active in the field of IT Law and Public Policy for advice and support. In that capacity he has recently developed a connection with The Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Management (CIPPM) at Bournemouth University having recently donated his private collection of grey literature, journals and books built up by him during his career at Southampton University (1977-2016).
Research projects
Completed projects
Publications
Teaching
Cert Ed, University of London (1977)
Former Research Fellow GeoData Institute, University of Southampton
Visiting Professor, School of Law, Arizona State University in 1983 teaching Comparative Computer Law and Constitutional Law
Participated in Conferences and events while Member of British Computer Society; The Legal Advisory Board, European Commission and from 2006-2014 Chair of the International Association of IT Lawyers’ international conference
At Southampton Law School – devised and taught courses in Computer Law and European IT Law (including by digital learning) between 1977 and 2016.
Biography
During his career, Stephen participated in the four Research Assessment Exercises of 1992, 1996, 2001 and 2008 and then again in the Research Excellence Framework Exercise of 2014. For the latter exercise, he was REF Champion, responsible for the entry by Southampton Law School.
He also co-founded and then became Director of Southampton’s Institute for Law and the Web (ILAWS).
In 1983, while on sabbatical, he taught Computer Law and Comparative Constitutional Law at Arizona State University. Then in 1985, as founding editor, he launched Computer Law and Security Report, rebranded in 2010 as Computer Law and Security Review - The International Journal of Technology Law and Practice (CLSR) ISSN0267-3649 (published by Elsevier since 1991). Under his sole editorship, during a period spanning 33 years, he produced six issues a year before reaching the landmark 200th edition in 2018. At that point, he retired as Editor-in-Chief, handing over the role to Professor Sophie Stalla-Bourdillon.
In 2018, the journal reached the No. 1 spot among technology law journals in Google Scholar metrics, in addition to its status as the only technology law journal in the world to be awarded both an Impact Factor as well as entry into the prestigious Clarivate Analytics’ Social Science Citation Index.
In addition to his editorship of CLSR he was also Editor of Sweet and Maxwell’s Encyclopedia of Information Technology Law (ISBN: 9780421372108) from 1990 until 2018
Externally from 2006-2014, he was Chair of the IAITL Conference international conference organised by the late distinguished Prof Sylvia Kierkegaard, former President of the International Association of IT Lawyer (IAITL). Successive meetings during this period took place in Hamburg, Copenhagen, Istanbul, Beijing, New York, Prague, Malta, Barcelona, Nicosia, Athens, Bangkok and Lisbon.