This course examines the objectives and the architecture of core regulations that govern digital infrastructures, data, content, and platform power in the European Union. The approach to adopt detailed regulation on digital technologies sets the EU apart from other countries, notably in the field of data, privacy, and artificial intelligence. You’ll learn about: 

• Infrastructure regulation: the European Electronic Communications Code, the Roaming Regulation and Open Internet Access Regulation, the NIS 2 Directive and Cyber Resilience Act.  
• Data regulation: the General Data Protection Regulation, the regulation on cross-border data transfers, the Data Act, and the Data Governance Act. 
• Content regulation: the Audiovisual Media Services Directive and European Media Freedom Act, and online platform and content rules under the Digital Services Act.  
• Platform power regulation: EU competition law, and the Digital Markets Act. 
• Artificial Intelligence regulation: the Artificial Intelligence Act, and the regulation of intellectual property rights and trade secrets related to AI. 

Technology governance is a unique mix of legal frameworks, markets, competition, and innovation. This course introduces you to a complex web of visions, instruments and dynamics that shape the development of today’s digital infrastructures. It offers students the analytical skills to examine key modes and mechanisms of governance, and the opportunity to strengthen their critical thinking about the digital world we live in.  

You’ll learn about: 

• Hardware and software value chains of AI production  
• The political economy of technology 
• Governance of innovation and risk 
• Colonial origins of global (digital) corporations 
• The (geo)politics of the Internet 
• Histories and imaginaries of law, technology, and media 
• Governance of intellectual property (IP) and data 
• Open-source technology and decentralised infrastructures 
• The micro- and macroeconomic foundations of the digital economy, markets, and competition 
• Activism. labour, and human rights in technology governance and regulation 

This course focuses on how societies understand, manage, and regulate the uncertainty, risk, and harm inherent in complex, tightly coupled techno-social systems.  You’ll work within the conceptual framework of ‘risk society’ to master policy instruments that help predict, redistribute, and respond to (unforeseen) technology-produced risks and harms through various forms of risk governance and regulation. You’ll learn about technology forecasting, risk governance, and risk-based regulation, with a focus on emerging digital technologies such as AI, online platforms, smart devices, and cloud infrastructures. 

This course will dig deep into the governance of artificial intelligence from a number of different perspectives — ranging from law and ethics to technical solutions. You’ll learn how different governance approaches can fail to address, or even exacerbate, harm and structural injustices such as oppression and domination. By the end of the course, you will have a solid understanding of the main approaches to governing AI and be able to identify what ‘responsible AI’means in practice and from a critical and situated perspective. 

The programme concludes with a final project that enables you to demonstrate your ability to address complex technology governance challenges from multidisciplinary and legal perspectives, utilising a variety of research methods. While you may choose to write a traditional thesis, the programme also offers the opportunity to engage in alternative research activities, such as joining a faculty research group, developing your own research topic under academic supervision, or producing, individually, or in collaboration with others, other innovative output, such as a peer-reviewed articles, software tools, media projects, or policy documents.