Research

TILT´s research activities cover a wide area related to the regulation of technology. In particular, research is centred on the interaction between law, technology, and society. TILT researchers are drawn from and provide expertise in a wide array of relevant fields, including private law, constitutional and administrative law, criminal law, media & information law, international law and human rights, ethics, public administration, social & political studies, psychology and philosophy of science. Together, TILT provides a thoroughly multi-disciplinary approach to the study of technology regulation.

The focus of TILT research includes areas such as privacy, security, autonomy, e-commerce, e-government, e-health, identity management, anonymity, cybercrime, DNA forensics, genetics regulation, neurotechnologies, development and justice, biotechnology and the environment, nano-technologies, intellectual property law and innovation, and general questions of regulation related to technology.

Research programme (2009-2013): Understanding the Mutual Shaping of Regulation, Technology and Normative Outlooks

TILT’s research is guided by a five-year research programme. The current programme is entitled ´Understanding the Mutual Shaping of Regulation, Technology and Normative Outlooks´ (2009-2013). The aim is to gain a deeper understanding of the complex ways in which technology, regulation and normative outlooks interact to shape each other – research that is essential for attempts to regulate technological developments and to stimulate innovation of socially-beneficial technologies. For example, the programme will examine questions such as what processes underlie the interaction of legislative and other rules, concrete technologies, and notions and elements of normative outlooks. Further, when and why do new rules or technologies arise; when and how does the gist of normative notions change, and which variations of rules, technologies, and normative notions persist? The programme is composed of various projects research projects and a final integration project. Click here for a more detailed summary of our current research programme Research programme 2009 2013 summary.

The previous research programme, ‘Regulation in the Information Society: The Interaction of Law, Technology (in Particular ICT and Biotechnology), and Social Structures’, ran from 2004 until 2008. Research within this programme focused on the re-orientating of legal systems, regulatory structures, and enforcement mechanisms in light of technological developments, with particular attention paid to various attempts to balance societal interests, such as security versus privacy or freedom versus ownership of information. The overarching aim of the research was to develop building blocks for a general framework of technology regulation. What these research efforts established, however, was that such building blocks are difficult to identify in the abstract. Not only is each particular regulatory problem context-specific and technology-specific, but also, no generic starting point(s) can be articulated that guide the solution of these problems. This is because technology, regulation, and normative outlooks interact, i.e., they continuously adapt to new technological, regulatory, and/or normative environments, and in this process, they mutually shape one another. This is the starting point of the current research programme.