Leverhulme Magna Carta Doctoral Training
Studentships: call for proposals
Royal Holloway, University of London has been awarded over £1 million from the Leverhulme Doctoral
Training Studentships scheme to support 15 PhD projects; five per year for three years. This award will be
supplemented by College studentships: up to twenty studentships may be funded.
The research theme is Freedom and the Rights of the Individual in the Digital Age. The primary and initial focus
will explore the current and future impact of digital technologies on security, personal freedom, and political
debates about freedom. This will also involve a general philosophical consideration and definition of personal
freedom, involving both negative freedom (the freedom from oppression) and the positive freedom to a life
well lived.
The goal is to create an interdisciplinary activity involving scientists and technologists, social scientists, and
academics in the humanities which will examine the historical origins and development of the contemporary
concepts of individual freedom in an age when personal boundaries as well as those between states,
corporations and individuals are in rapid flux because of shifts in technology. It is hoped the ideas and
knowledge generated will underpin attempts to formulate a new Magna Carta for the digital age.
We are experiencing a social revolution, driven by disruptive technologies, especially the mobile phone.
Writing immediately post-war, Orwell's icon of a technological dystopia was the Telescreen, a bidirectional
television which both displayed propaganda and monitored the viewer's home, obliterating privacy. This
fictional dystopia required a Stalinist police state to enforce the installation of Telescreens. In the real world,
by 2014 more than half of the UK population had willingly exchanged a week's earnings for a personal
portable Telescreen, which continuously transmits the user's whereabouts to corporations and
governments. Glib linkage of these developments to Orwell's vision abound; but smartphone-enabled access
to other's experiences, prejudices and insights can also raise citizen consciousness, drive debate and dissent,
and in some recent cases, catalyse revolution.
To the user, smart phones and ubiquitous Internet access feel empowering even though recent revelations
show that all citizens are now subject to covert monitoring. Does this technology lead to freedom or
serfdom? What will the new social contract be, and how is it to be constructed? Do we need a Magna Carta
for the digital age, or do we step aside and let market forces find the equilibrium point between personal
privacy, profit and national security? As a comparison it might be argued historically that the reinvention of
the power of Magna Carta as a liberty document was co-incident with the rise of mass media print
technology which transformed communication in the early modern period, and in doing so posed new
problems for the nation state and the liberties of individuals, communities and minorities.
Call for proposals
We solicit proposals for PhD student projects within this broad topic. Areas of interest include the
development ,deployment and security of digital communication and commerce technologies; the impact of
social media; the growth of Big Data and data analytics; surveillance and universal monitoring of citizens;
notions of nationhood, freedom and individual liberty (both historical and developing); the role of the
judiciary; new forms of criminality; and the impact on states of trans-national corporations. These research
areas may fall within the themes proposed to Leverhulme, namely:
1) Identifying emerging challenges to the popularly accepted concepts of personal freedom (in terms of
privacy, ideas, wealth, travel, faith) from changes in technology and society
2) Developing new frameworks for defining personal freedom and ways in which it can be protected
3) Identifying new opportunities for enhancing and underpinning truth, democracy and debate, with
associated routes to validation and verification, using evidence based reasoning
4) Capitalising on historical experience to guide future frameworks
5) Considering ethical challenges in the collection, use, dissemination and destruction of data
This is not an exclusive list, and projects may be proposed within the overall theme that do not fall neatly
into the above categories.
A major goal of this initiative is to foster inter-disciplinary projects that can be used as a foundation for future
grant applications. Such collaborations might involve more than one studentship; for instance initial
technology focussed projects with linked studentships starting one or two years later in the humanities or
social sciences which study the social implications of those technologies: for instance concepts and legal
regulation of privacy.
Applicants should complete the attached form which, when completed, should not exceed two pages. There
is no specific word limit on any section within the form.
The bids will be assessed by an interdisciplinary team chaired by the Vice Principal for Research. The successful
proposals will be selected on the basis of the quality, originality and relevance of the proposals.
Timescale for submission
The first Leverhulme-funded students will be in post by Autumn 2015. Project proposals on the attached
form must be received sent to Sandra Walton ([email protected]) by Thursday 29th January 2015.
Decisions on ranking and funding will be announced by February 14th, and the successful projects advertised
by the end of February.
( JC/DD/PH/AJ 17.12.14)
Project title
Staff Please list all academic staff involved with this project along with their research centre or department
Project description
Appropriateness for this research theme
Importance Does the project address a topic of urgent concern? Will the work open up new areas of study?
Interdisciplinary significance How will the work excite the interest of scholars in multiple fields?
Originality
Potential impact