Li Hao (left) and Lam Weng Lam (right)
A paper co-authored by doctoral student Li Hao and master’s students Lam Weng Lam and Wang Sichun from the Faculty of Law (FLL) at the University of Macau (UM) was awarded a second prize in the ‘Tianmu Talent – The 2nd Macao University Students Academic Essay Competition’. This marks the second consecutive year that FLL students have received awards in the competition, highlighting the faculty’s strong research capabilities and its commitment to providing intellectual support for the connectivity in institutional rules and mechanisms between Macao and Hengqin.
The competition, themed ‘Academia as a Bridge, Youth as the Mainstay, and Hengqin as the Anchor’, attracted over 600 students from more than 70 universities at home and abroad. The judging panel comprised experts and scholars from over 30 universities and research institutions across the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, and Macao. Following multiple rounds of review and eligibility screening, 57 papers were selected for awards.
The award-winning paper from UM, titled ‘Rules on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) of Subsequent Cross-Boundary Data Transfer between Guangdong and Macao and the Pilot Pathway in Hengqin—From the Perspective of Contextual Integrity Theory’, was supervised by Wei Dan, associate dean and doctoral supervisor of FLL.
The study, which draws on the theory of Contextual Integrity, finds differences between cross-boundary data transfers within and outside the Greater Bay Area when SCCs are adopted as the legal basis, particularly regarding data recipients, data types, and data transmission principles. The paper proposes leveraging the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin as a pilot platform for policy innovation and further refinement of the SCC framework, with the aim of strengthening legal protections for cross-boundary data transfers between Guangdong and Macao and facilitating high-level opening-up.
The competition was guided by the Beijing Liaison Department of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macao SAR, the Social Work Department (Research Office) of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macao SAR, the Office of the Macao SAR in Beijing, and the Education and Youth Development Bureau of the Macao SAR government, with academic guidance provided by the Hong Kong and Macao Research Institute of the Hong Kong and Macao Work Office of the CPC Central Committee. It was organised by the Macau Scholars Development Association and Macau Student Home, and co-organised by the Central University of Finance and Economics, Hengqin IDC Group Co Ltd, The Commercial Press (Macau), and the Macau Economic Association.
