The interdisciplinary Centre for Privacy, Security and Data Governance (
iHub) at Radboud University (Nijmegen, the Netherlands) is seeking an MA student preferably with a background in ethics and a strong interest in themes related to digitalization. The PhD candidate will write their thesis in the field of digital ethics. Possible topics may for instance include: online manipulation and threats to autonomy; automated decision-making and moral deskilling; digital paternalism, boosting and nudging; and digital epistemology and epistemic injustice. However, candidates are welcome to submit a proposal on a topic of their own choice (see below).
iHub brings together a diverse range of scholars from across the humanities, law, social sciences, and computer sciences to tackle urgent questions raised by the increased digitalisation and datafication of science and society. iHub’s central
research lines include 1) privacy and security; 2) solidarity and justice; 3) autonomy and freedom; 4) knowledge and expertise.
iHub’s aims are both theoretical and applied. Research at iHub engages in theoretical work to clarify how digitalisation destabilises norms, practices and laws, asking how fundamental values and rights are enhanced or undermined by digitalisation in each of the four research lines. On the other hand, it seeks to develop concrete solutions that can help secure the positive effects of digitalisation, and limit and pre-empt its undesirable ones. Such solutions can be normative and/or institutional, but can also be technical (e.g., value sensitive design), and may be developed and tested in the hub’s iLab.
Daily supervision of the PhD research will be carried out by Dr. Fleur Jongepier, in alignment with her own research project titled ‘Do algorithms know better? First-person authority in the age of big data’. More broadly, the PhD research will be part of iHub's activities on technical, legal and ethical aspects of digital technologies, involving in particular Prof. Bart Jacobs and Dr. Tamar Sharon.