SNSF Phd Position in Digital Law

Introduction

UNIL is a leading international teaching and research institution, with over 5,000 employees and 17,000 students split between its Dorigny campus, CHUV and Epalinges. As an employer, UNIL encourages excellence, individual recognition and responsibility.

Presentation

Dominant online platforms play a key role in our societies. This creates systemic risks to democracy, such as undermining freedom of information and online privacy. These risks are, however merely symptoms of a root cause: the high concentration of control and data with dominant (online) platforms. Both computer science (CS) and legal scholarship (Law) have been developing countermeasures, but typically in disciplinary silos. In CS, researchers have tried to find workarounds for the lack of explicit research platform data access methods by combining available technical methods (e.g., data scraping, blackbox testing, network traffic analysis). However, those approaches face challenges, stemming from platform-imposed restrictions and limited legal support. In Law, the EU enacted the Digital Services Act (DSA) in late 2022 to enable vetted researchers to better access dominant online platforms while the Swiss Federal Council is currently considering similar legislation. However, there is a significant risk that, without sufficient technical support and alignment, these promising legal mechanisms become moot in practice. To overcome the challenge of having computational methods without (legal) teeth, or legal solutions that are not implementable or miss important technical aspects, there is a strong need for CS and Law to work closely together to develop a mutual understanding and integrated implementations of concepts, viewpoints and methods.

Job information

Expected start date in position : 01.06.2025 or to be agreed

Contract length : maximum 4 years

Activity rate : 100%

Workplace : Lausanne Dorigny

Your responsibilities

Within your PhD you will contribute to two main objectives: 

1) combine existing technical data access methods with novel legal approaches like the DSA and create new technical methods on this foundation 

2) advance current legally mandated platform data access methods and make them work in practice. Your research will be grounded in two use cases in the domains of social media and mobile applications.

Your qualifications

We are looking for curious, open-minded, and tech-friendly researchers who want to conduct cutting-edge interdisciplinary work, engage with students, and have a strong team spirit. From a formal point of view, these are the most important skills we are looking for:
●   Master’s degree in Law or Law and Technology (LLM) (check eligibility conditions for a PhD at UNIL: https://www.unil.ch/ecolededroit/fr/home/menuinst/enseignement/doctorat-droit.html (in French only))
●   Interest in interdisciplinary research and willingness to learn and step out of your disciplinary comfort zone
●   Community-friendly team player
●   Excellent oral and written English communication
●   Preferred: Good organizational skills
●   Preferred: Experience in academic research or teaching

What the position offers you

●    A stimulating research environment with collaborative and interdisciplinary research project
●    We enable you to stay curious, create and develop new approaches to addressing pressing societal needs
●    Research stays at other Swiss, EU universities, and in the UK to foster an academic network

We offer a nice working place in a multicultural, diverse and dynamic academic environment. Opportunities for professional training, a lot of activities and other benefits to discover.

Contact for further information

Inquiries concerning this position can be directed to: E-Mail schreiben

Your application

Deadline : 24.04.2025

Please, send your full application in Word or pdf:

●    A motivation letter (max. 2 A-4 pages)
●    A max. 1000-word long research plan tackling the two research objectives mentioned in the outline containing
●    Clear research questions
●    Methodologies to address your research question
●    Ideas of the contributions you want to make to the field
●    Max. 10 references in the academic literature that you believe are key
●    An up-to-date CV
●    Academic transcript of bachelor’s and master’s degrees, including list of grades;
●    A master thesis (if applicable) or another substantial piece of writing by the applicant
●    If available: A letter of reference by a professor or tutor that supervised you along your academic path (e.g., master thesis supervisor)

Only applications through this website will be taken into account.

We thank you for your understanding.

Additional information

UNIL is committed to:
•    equality, diversity and inclusion within its community;
•    ensuring an open and respectful environment that is conducive to personal development;
•    offering working conditions that facilitate work-life balance;
•    supporting early career researchers.

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