The Microsoft-UCD Digital Policy Programme is designed to support those in government with the skills and knowledge necessary to amend existing legislation and plan for new legislation that will protect society and provide a relevant framework in which organisations can operate.
UCD Centre for
Digital Policy
Building digital policy capability amongst the public
and private sector in Ireland and across the wider
European Union.
and private sector in Ireland and across the wider
European Union.
About The Centre
Digital technologies underpin all areas of society and the economy, from work to leisure to political participation. However, as technological developments in the field of digital and data science accelerate, balancing the rights of citizens while investing in the possibilities afforded by digital technologies remains tricky for legislators, policy makers, and the private sector alike.
New technologies emerge and create new challenges even as organisations and governments struggle with creating appropriate responses for today.
Our Team
Colin Scott
Senior Advisor
Colin Scott serves as Registrar, Deputy President and Vice President for Academic Affairs University College Dublin. Previously, he was the Vice...
Eugenia Siapera
Director
As well as being a professor of Information and Communication Studies, Eugenia Siapera is head of the School of Information and Communication Studies...
Elizabeth Farries
Director
Dr Farries is the Director of the UCD Centre for Digital Policy along with Professor Siapera, the Programme Director of the MSc, Graduate Diploma and...
Marco Bastos
Advisor
Marco Bastos is the UCD Ad Astra Fellow at the School of Information and Communication Studies and senior lecturer at City, University of London. He...
Our Members
The Centre membership is multi-disciplinary drawing on expertise in media, communications, law, politics, and computer science.
Abeba Birhane
Senior Advisor AI Accountability at Mozilla Foundation and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the School of Computer Science and Statistics at TCD
Abeba Birhane is a cognitive scientist, currently a Senior Advisor in AI Accountability at the Mozilla Foundation and an Adjunct Assistant Professor...
Marguerite Barry
Assistant Professor, School of Information and Communication Studies
Marguerite Barry is assistant professor at the School of Information & Communication Studies at UCD, programme director for the MSc in...
Brendan Spillane
Assistant Professor, School of Information and Communication Studies
Brendan is an assistant professor at the School of Information and Communication Studies in UCD. Brendan has always had a strong interest in the...
Arjumand Younus
Assistant Professor of Computational Social Science, School of Sociology
Arjumand Younus is an Assistant Professor at UCD’s School of Information and Communication Studies, teaching and researching in the area of...
Insights
Read about some updates about the centre, our activities and articles by our members about critical areas in digital policy development
AI and Society Event with keynote Professor Stuart Russell at the NCH
8th November 2023. The Centre for Digital Policy was delighted to support the AI and Society event at the National...
The UCD Centre for Digital Policy presents our cyber security series
December 2022. We are excited to share with you a new educational series from the UCD Centre for Digital Policy in...
Video: Our Centre’s rationale
31 July, 2023. Our Centre’s Director, Liz Farries, was interviewed during the “College Digital Technologies...
Delivering Digital Policy For The 21st Century
October 2021. How does a 19th century Parliamentary system and model of government successfully consider, draft and...
The Digital Services Act Package: A Primer
On December 15th, 2020, the European Commission submitted its legislative proposal for digital service to the European...
Ireland’s Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill: Too Little, Too Soon?
April 2021. The General Scheme of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill (OSMR) represents the extensive and good...
Recent Publications
Social media, fundamental rights and courts: an Irish perspective
September 2023. Our Centre’s Co-Director Liz Farries has contributed a Chapter to the 2023 Routledge book...
Data infrastructure studies on an unequal planet
August 2023. Our Centre Member Patrick Brodie has published an article in which he demonstrates that data centers...
Are Social Media algorithms harmless?
August 2023. Our Centre’s Team Member Marco Bastos has written an op-ed on Algorithm Watch discussing the limitations...
Local News as Propaganda: Precarization and Media Control in Qinghai News
July 2023. Our Centre Team Member Marco Bastos has co-authored an article highlighting how a Chinese local news outlet...
Alt Tech and the public sphere: Exploring Bitchute as a political media infrastructure
July 2023. Our Centre’s Co-Director Eugenia Siapera authored an article on Alt Tech, by exploring Bitchute, a...
A New Era for Platform Research: Data Access for Researchers under the Digital Services Act
On 31st May 2023, our Centre Member Naoise McNally, PhD Researcher at ML-Labs (SFI Centre for Research Training in...
