Funded PhD Studentship: Governments’ Monitoring of Social Media and International Law (Joint PhD Research Study)

This scholarship is for a joint Swansea-Grenoble PhD. Candidates will spend time at College of Law and Criminology, Swansea University and Doctoral School of Law, Université Grenoble Alpes.

Project start date: 1 April 2018

The objective of this joint Swansea-Grenoble PhD will be to study how Governments around the world try to track and monitor the content that users publish on social media, what requests they make, and the companies’ answers to these requests. This will be analysed using the framework of International Law, in particular International Human Rights Law.

The supervisory team for this project will consist of Prof Stuart Macdonald (Swansea), Dr Lella Nouri (Swansea), Prof Theodore Christakis (Grenoble) and Prof Karine Bannelier (Grenoble).

The successful candidate will have the opportunity to participate in activities organised by Swansea University’s Cyberterrorism Project (www.cyberterrorism-project.org) and Université Grenoble Alpes’ Centre for International Security and European Studies (http://cesice.upmf-grenoble.fr/). During their first year the successful candidate will spend six months at each institution. During years two and three the length of time to be spent at each institution will be determined by the student’s supervisory needs.

Eligibility

As this is a joint degree, applicants must meet entry / funder requirements of both Universities, namely:

Communauté Université Grenoble Alpes:

Applicants must hold a Masters degree in Law.

Swansea University:

Either a First Class Honours Degree with a Masters in Law or, a Master’s Degree with Distinction.

Due to funding restrictions, this studentship is open to UK/EU candidates only.