Come study with me! PhD studentship in copyright

Research studentship in Data Mining and Copyright Law 

This 3 year full-time PhD studentship is offered with a start date of January 2013 or as soon as possible thereafter. The successful candidate will receive an annual stipend of £13,590 and a fee-waiver for those eligible for Home/EU fees (2011/12 rates).

This studentship will be co-supervised at Strathclyde University between the School of Law and School of Business. The research topic  forms part of the work programme of a large four-year £8m Centre, CREATe, the Centre   for Creativity, Regulation, Enterprise and Technology, which is a consortium consisting of the Universities of Glasgow, Strathclyde, Edinburgh, Nottingham, St Andrews UEA and Goldsmiths, alongside over 80 industry and public sector arts partners.  The studentship will be co-supervised by Professor Lilian Edwards (Law) and Dr Stephen Tagg (Business). Profesor Edwards is also Deputy Director of CREATe, whose lead institution is Glasgow. It is expected the successful candidate will be given opportunities to interact with the rest of the CREATe team and its activities. The student will have access to facilities in both Faculties and be based physically at Strathclyde.

The project to which the studentship is attached is shared between Strathclyde and the Horizon Digital Economy Hub at Nottingham, and   deals with the legal, technical and social issues around data mining and the cultural industries. Data mining allows new data to be extracted from old by automated means,  ie, from existing large sets of texts or data. Examples include mining existing databases to create profiles about data subjects for use in targeted advertising; police use of data-mining of social networks for law enforcement and surveillance; and research use of datasets, eg, comparing incidences of words in variant texts of Shakespeare plays, or looking for new drugs by analysing existing papers on drug formulae. The recent Hargreaves report on copyright reform recommended a limited new exception to copyright for data mining, but this is opposed by industry players such as the publishers’ association. The PhD candidate recruited will be expected to work on the copyright and other legal as well as business and cultural implications of data mining.

Applicants can come from any relevant background including science, technology, law or business, but a basic understanding of and interest in intellectual property law is desirable. Candidates should have at least a good 2:1 Honours first degree in relevant discipline  and a relevant Masters is desirable though not essential.

Deadline for receipt of completed applications: Monday 17th December 2012.

Please send covering letter explaining why you want to do this PhD, cv including full academic qualifications, and indicate two referees, at least one academic.

Informal enquires: Please contact Professor Lilian Edwards (lilian.edwards@strath.ac.uk )

For further project details and information on how to apply please contact:
Patricia Bunce, Graduate School Manager, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Room LH128, Lord Hope building, 141 St. James Road, Glasgow
G4 OLT

Email: patricia.bunce@strath.ac.uk.         Tel: +44 (0)141 444 8452