Recruitment of a PHD Researcher in cyberlaw

The Sciences Po Law School is looking for a doctoral researcher in law and the digital environment as part of the New Digital Rule of Law project funded by the McCourt Institute.

In the frame of a research project on The New Digital Rule of Law, funded by the McCourt Institute, The Sciences Po Law School is offering a Doctoral position in the field of law and the digital environment. The researcher will be hosted by the Sciences Po Law School for three year, starting in September 2022. He/she will be expected to carry out a postdoctoral research within the Law School’s New Digital Rule of Law project.

The McCourt research project aims at studying the legal governance/regulation of the Internet and digital technologies and at investigating the necessary role of law in current internet evolution. Amongst the questions relevant to the projects: How can the values and rights needed to sustain democracy and the common good be upheld and ensured in our digital world? What is the role of the law in doing so? What is the value of constitutional law concepts for a digital rule of law? How to govern AI to make it compatible with democracy? How do code and design interact with regulation in the digital age? How do infrastructures govern and how to govern infrastructures to address data inequality and shape a less concentrated web? The goal of the project is to understand what kinds of new concepts and regulatory mechanisms need to be devised to face these challenges.

Sciences Po Law School welcomes doctoral project applications related to issues of the rule of law in the digital environment in a vast array of fields: constitutional law, legal jurisprudence, AI and algorithms, innovation, the regulation of the web… The selection will be based on the excellence of the candidate and on the originality ad relevance of the PhD proposal.

Eligibility

The program is open to students holding the equivalent of a Master degree from a French or a foreign institution, preferably in law. The candidate will be expected to have some knowledge of the scholarship of cyberspace law and to be fluent in English, both in speech and writing. French language would be a plus, as well as any experience in the research topics developed above.

Work environment

Sciences Po Law School offers an ambitious doctoral program, located in the Sciences Po School of Research. Doctoral candidates are encouraged to pursue critical and rigorous research in various fields of law to amass technical as well as theoretical knowledge. Our doctoral candidates are well-versed in diverse methods and perspectives, open to multidisciplinary approaches to law, as well as to diverse legal cultures.

The doctoral program of the Law School provides PhD candidates with excellent research facilities (workstation, access to Sciences Po library, etc). PhD candidates also benefit from a net monthly amount of approximately 1500€ for the three years of the PhD curriculum). Academic events at the Law School are extremely accessible and students enrolled in the program are regularly associated to the scientific events organized by SPLS scientific community (workshops, seminars...).

ADMISSION PROCESS

Please submit your online application by the 1st of May 2022 at the latest (for admissions' results mid-July 2022). Pay attention: this deadline for the McCourt PhD Program is sooner than the deadline for the general application to Sciences Po PhD program.

The application is available exclusively online. See the list of documents to attach to your application.

In parallel to applying online, please send to severine.dusollier@sciencespo.fr by the 1st of May 2022 an email with the header "PHD application McCourt", indicating that you are applying for the McCourt PhD scholarship and that you have completed your online application.