PhD in Law, Science and Technology

Academic Year 2022-2023
Subject area Legal, Politological, Economic and Statistical Sciences
Cycle 38
Coordinator Prof. Monica Palmirani
Language English
Duration 3 years

Application deadline: Aug 02, 2022 at 11:59 PM (Expired)

NRRP Call for Applications

Enrolment: From Sep 30, 2022 to Oct 10, 2022

Doctoral programme start date: Nov 01, 2022

NRRP loghi

Application deadline: Jun 09, 2022 at 11:59 PM (Expired)

Call for Applications

Positions: More information in the PhD Programme Table

Doctoral programme start date: Nov 01, 2022

Main Department
Department of Legal Studies - DSG
Associated Departments
Alma Mater Research Institute For Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (Alma Human AI)
Research topics
  • Human Rights and Ethical Principles in new and emerging technologies
  • Ethics and law in Genetics
  • Biotechnology and law
  • Biobanks, DNA and research
  • E-health and Privacy by Design applying AI and Big Data
  • Privacy and eHealth information systems
  • Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Health
  • Semantic Web and Legal ontologies modelling
  • Legal Analytics and AI for Legal Sources
  • Legal Design techniques for transparency
  • Data Science for Law
  • Digital Humanities and legal sources
  • LegalXML for legal document and knowledge modelling
  • Information Systems for eJustice, eGovernment, and eLegislation
  • Computational models of legal and ethical reasoning
  • Intelligent Information extraction and NLP of legal resources
  • e-Discovery and data mining in Legal domain
  • Legal knowledge extraction using ML
  • Formal Models of Norms and Legal Reasoning Logic-based models of norms and legal knowledge
  • Legal reasoning, including argumentation and reasoning
  • Argumentation systems Game theory as applied to the law
  • Normative Multi-Agent Systems and e-Institutions Regulatory Compliance
  • Automotive Self-driving system and liability
  • Regulation of Robotics and Related Ethical Issues
  • Privacy and Security with New Technology Cybercrime and Computer Forensics
  • Computer forensics and security
  • e-Business and Consumer Law
  • e-Governance and e-Democracy social modelling
  • IPR and New Technology
  • Protection of children online for a safer Internet
  • Digital citizenship and vulnerability of the minor digital identity
  • Blockchain for legal domain
  • eDemocracy: theoretical and technical models
  • Artificial intelligence and democracy in the data society
  • Artificial intelligence and eJustice: legal and technical solutions
  • Big Data governance and law regulation balancing economical and individual rights
Job opportunities and potential areas of employment
The doctoral programme offers innovative and up-to-date integrated training enabling candidates to carry out cutting-edge research in different subjects, such as bioethics and law & computer science, in topics that require a genuine interdisciplinary approach. It includes an internship in the third year offered by 14 industries, where candidates can apply their research and complement it with a professional experience. Upon completing the programme, graduates will become highly skilled researchers and professionals, meeting the requirements of the public and private sectors.
They will be able qualified to seek employment, for example, in
- law firms working on IPR, privacy, e-commerce, and patenting;
- high-tech software houses where artificial intelligence is applied;
- specialised research centres such as medical genetic centres, nanotechnology centres, and robotics laboratories;
- government offices that manage innovative ICT and eGovernment, eJustice, and eParliament projects;
- ethics committees that analyse scientific innovations and write policy documents.
Admission Board

NRPP Call Admission Board
Appointed by RD 1103/2022 Prot. n. 0162873 of 17/07/2022

Surname Name University / Institution Role Email
Durante Massimo  Università di Torino Member
Górriz López  Carlos  Autonoma de Barcelona Member
Palmirani Monica Università di Bologna Member
Rotolo Antonino Università di Bologna Member
Vedder Anton  Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Member
Baldoni Matteo Università degli Studi di Torino Substitute
Caso Roberto Università di Trento Substitute
Cole Mark University of Luxembourg Substitute
Heinze Christian Leibniz Universität Hannover Substitute
Van Der Torre Leon University of Luxembourg Substitute

Call for Application Admission Board
Appointed by RD 830/2022 Prot. n. 0127511 of 30/05/2022

Surname Name University / Institution Role email
Durante Massimo  Università di Torino Member
Górriz López  Carlos  Autonoma de Barcelona Member
Palmirani Monica Università di Bologna Member
Van Der Torre Leon University of Luxembourg Member
Vedder Anton  Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Member
Baldoni Matteo Università degli Studi di Torino Substitute
Caso Roberto Università di Trento Substitute
Cole Mark University of Luxembourg Substitute
Heinze Christian Leibniz Universität Hannover Substitute
Rotolo Antonino Università di Bologna Substitute
Learning outcomes

The objective of the doctoral programme in Law, Science and Technology (LAST-JD) is to offer interdisciplinary integrated competences making it possible to deal with the new challenges the information society and the newly emerging technologies will increasingly pose in the future in the legal domain and the socio-ethical field. Upon completing of the doctoral programme, participants will be able to become legal professionals in specific ICT domains like software, databases, big data, AI, blockchain, robotics; government officials capable of managing eGovernment projects; researchers in specialised laboratories (medical genetic or nanotechnology); members of ethics committees; computer-forensics and security experts; legal-knowledge engineers. IoE technologies are viewed through the lens of the law, ethics, and human rights. Particular attention is dedicated to the Internet of Data, the Internet of Things, the Internet of Persons, the Internet of Health, the Internet of Money.

Activities to be carried out by Doctoral candidates

The doctoral programme offers innovative and up-to-date integrated training enabling candidates to carry out cutting-edge research in different subjects, such as bioethics and law & computer science, in topics that require a genuine interdisciplinary approach. It includes an internship in the third year offered by 14 industries, where candidates can apply their research and complement it with a professional experience. Upon completing the programme, graduates will become highly skilled researchers and professionals, meeting the requirements of the public and private sectors.

They will be able qualified to seek employment, for example, in

  • law firms working on IPR, privacy, e-commerce, and patenting;
  • high-tech software houses where artificial intelligence is applied;
  • specialised research centres such as medical genetic centres, nanotechnology centres, and robotics laboratories;
  • government offices that manage innovative ICT and eGovernment, eJustice, and eParliament projects;
  • ethics committees that analyse scientific innovations and write policy documents.
Research training activities compliant with the Doctoral programme's learning outcomes

Bologna University
20 hours of lectures for a methodological course on doctoral research instruments.
40 hours of lectures providing an overview of the main topics, or specific courses for each type of degree background in order to fill gaps in students’ knowledge not provided by previous education.

Torino University
20 hours of lectures
20 hours of a high-level methodological workshop

Mykolas Romeris University
20 hours of lectures on International Legal Framework for E-Business
20 hours of lectures on Legal Framework and Strategic Aspects of E-Democracy
20 hours of lectures on International Legal Framework of Biomedicine and Biotechnology

University of Luxembourg
20 hours of lectures – Deontic Logic
20 hours of lectures – Legal Argumentation
20 hours of lectures – Regulation of the Internet; a trans-national challenge (offered by the Law Faculty)

Internationalization features

The LAST-JD-RIoE is an International Ph.D. programme under the Horizon 2020 EU project 814177, MSCA ITN (Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions European Joint Doctorates). Doctoral candidates will acquire joint degrees in INTERNATIONAL DOCTORAL DEGREE IN LAW, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY. The consortium is composed of 29 partners (9 beneficiaries, 2 research centers, 4 associate universities, 14 industries) with seven EU countries (Italy, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Spain, Austria, Germany, Belgium) and two non-EU countries (Australia, USA). The nine universities are: the universities of Bologna, Turin, Luxembourg, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Mykolas Romeris University, the Centre for IT and IP Law, KU Leuven, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Universität Wien.
Three terms of mobility, for a total of 18 months, are required to ensure that all students follow courses in an integrated way and can benefit from the specific expertise available at partners universities, providing in particular an opportunity to experience research activity in departments of different kinds (law, computer science, bioethics, genetics) and to familiarize with local languages and the different legal systems of the EU. The research topics are fixed and they concern the Internet of Things coupled with the rights and freedoms. We have also six associated partners, two research centers (ITTIG-CNR, Data61- CSIRO), and four associate universities (Univ. del Piemonte Orientale, Univ. of Pittsburgh, La Trobe, and Observatorio de Bioética y Derecho of UB). They guarantee a connection with a high-technology centre from an international perspective.

Expected research results and products

By end of first semester:
Literature and archival map presented to, discussed with, and approved by, the Academic Committee
By end of second semester:
Review of archival work completed and draft outline of the dissertation approved by the Academic Committee.
By end of third semester: analytical table of contents presented to , and approved by, the Academic Committee.
By end of fourth semester: completed chapter presented to, and approved by, the Academic Committee.
By end of fifth semester: majority of chapters complete and presented in pre-final draft to Committee.
By middle of sixth semester:
written text entirely completed in pre-final form; then archival checks and polishing of prose, work ready for defence.
At the end the doctoral candidate must achieve two papers published in conference proceedings or journal, and to attend at least two international or national conferences.

Notices

NRRP Call - Admission Exams Schedule

Qualifications Evaluation Results: from Aug. 22th, 2022; Oral Examination: from Aug. 31st, 2022 - 9am; Oral Examination Results: from Sept. 10th, 2022. For further information, check the detail of your application on Studenti Online.