PhD in Systemic Actors Enforcement of Digital Rules

How can regulation and enforcement take account of systemic actors in the digital economy

Enforcing digital rules against very large platforms large tech companies is a moving target. This PhD project will look at the existence of systemic actors in the digital economy and their implications for enforcement dynamics. The digital economy is characterized by the emergence of actors that have a significantly broader systemic impact on the way in which compliance with digital rules is organized and enforced than just their own operations.

Examples from the literature include smartphone ecosystems, and infrastructural cloud services. This project will study the extent to which the systemic influence of these actors is recognized in and how the enforcement of digital rules can optimally approach these actors, considering broader impacts on compliance and enforcement.

The doctoral project will examine how regulators adapt enforcement strategies in response to systemic actors under the DSA, DMA, AI Act and GDPR, studying how initial enforcement attempts evolve as regulators learn from complex platform ecosystems. You will trace enforcement processes across cases and jurisdictions and interview those involved. The work will build a typology of regulatory learning patterns concerning systemic actors, best-practice enforcement learning cycles and a framework for adaptive enforcement.

You will work on a legal PhD thesis at the Institute for Information Law (IViR), Amsterdam Law School, University of Amsterdam, as part of the REGULAIRE project. The PhD will provide the opportunity to contribute to the activities of the DSA Observatory and the Amsterdam Law School Sectorplan initiative Democratic Digital Transformation ) and offers a focused route into information law, platform regulation and enforcement research.

REGULAIRE (Regulatory Learning for the Governance of Transformative Technologies) is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network bringing together 15 doctoral candidates at ten European universities to study how regulation can learn to govern transformative technologies such as AI, quantum computing and neurotechnology. Its projects examine how regulators sense emerging problems early, how balanced interventions encourage learning without overcorrection or underreaction, how such interventions alter institutional capacities, and how feedback can be institutionalised so that insights travel across organisations and jurisdictions.

Across the network, regulatory learning means treating regulation as a learning architecture that generates, tests and refines knowledge about what works, rather than as one-off rule making. Each researcher joins an international cohort, receives supervision across institutions and takes part in three residential summer schools, methods workshops, monthly paper development seminars and joint work with regulators, standardisation bodies and international organisations.

Every project includes a planned three-month intersect oral secondment. The network is coordinated by Prof. Urs Gasser at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

More specifically, you are expected to:

• Refine the research questions and design with the supervision team, and prepare ethics, data-management and open-science materials.
• Collect, manage and analyse research data using the approved project-specific methods.
• Complete a doctoral thesis and related research outputs under the doctoral programme and the REGULAIRE plan.
• Take part in local and network-wide training, cohort activities, network reviews, dissemination and practitioner engagement, including three residential summer schools and monthly paper development seminars.
• Undertake the planned three-month intersect oral secondment.
• Contribute to the research and activities of the DSA Observatory.
• Contribute to research integrity, equality and diversity, open science and FAIR data practices.

• A Master's degree (or an equivalent qualification giving access to doctoral studies) in law, political science, media and communication studies, or related legal, social science and interdisciplinary fields, completed by the start date.
• A demonstrable interest in studying the relationship of law to digital technologies and services.
• Skills or a demonstrable interest in qualitative regulatory process tracing and interviews.
• Excellent command of written and spoken English.
• Willingness to engage in international mobility, including the…