Professor Derek Wilding is based in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney where he is the Co-Director of the Centre for Media Transition. His research focuses on media and digital platform policy and regulation. He has worked in statutory and industry-based positions, specialising in media and communications regulation. 

AT UTS, Derek has led CMT projects including research commissioned by the ACCC on the impact of digital platforms on news and journalism, and research commissioned by the ACMA on media diversity, localism, impartiality and commercial content. With Dr Karen Lee, Derek leads a three-year Australian Research Council Discovery Project on the Future of Co-Regulation in the Digital Platform Era.  He recently completed an ARC Discovery Project led by Associate Professor Tim Dwyer on media pluralism, and he is currently a Chief Investigator on another Discovery Project led by Professor Terry Flew at the University of Sydney examining the value of news. He is the UTS lead on an ARC LIEF grant awarded to the University of Sydney, UNSW Sydney and UTS to establish an International Digital Policy Observatory.  

Before coming to UTS, Derek was Executive Director of the Australian Press Council. He was previously the manager of media ownership and control at the Australian Communications and Media Authority, and Director of the Communications Law Centre at UNSW. He also worked for the Office of Film and Literature Classification and the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. 

Derek is a member of the Nominations Panel that makes recommendations to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Communications on appointments to the boards of the ABC and SBS. He is a board member of the International Institute of Communications and the chair of the IIC’s editorial committee and its Future Leaders Essay Competition.