[Commlist] postdoc position at the Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam

The Institute for Information Law (http://www.ivir.nl ) at the 
University of Amsterdam is looking for a postdoctoral socio-legal 
research scientist
###Job description###

As a research scientist, you’ll be working on the social and 
institutional aspects of trust in and by technological systems. Multiple 
technologies emerged to produce trust (such as global reputation 
systems, (self-sovereign) identity systems), or minimize the need for 
trust (DLTs). Trust, as produced by technical systems has many possible 
sources: strong cryptography, censorship resistance through 
decentralization, good governance, or legal legibility, certainty and 
compliance. Some of these trust sources, like technology governance and 
regulation, can complement each other. Others, such as compliance and 
decentralization, seem to be in contradiction. As a social scientist, 
you will be working with legal scholars on answering the following two 
questions at the intersection of trust and technology:

     - How do (decentralized) technologies produce trust or minimize 
the need for trust?
     - What makes these systems trustworthy?

You will answer these questions by studying various aspects of trust and 
trustworthiness in technological contexts.

In particular you will:
- conduct empirical research among technology developers on the 
trustworthiness of technology: -- design and implement surveys, and 
conduct qualitative analysis on how technology developers see the 
trustworthiness of technology they build and operate, and how they 
implement and balance different sources of trust in technological 
systems (system design, governance, legal compliance, etc.);

- conduct empirical research among technology users on the topic of 
trust: -- design and implement surveys among users of blockchain based 
systems on the issue of trust and trustworthiness;
-- conduct a qualitative analysis of the discourses around trust and DLTs;

- work on the problem of institutional embeddedness of decentralized 
technical systems:
-- conduct empirical research on how existing societal stakeholders 
(such as businesses, the media, various professional groups, regulators, 
policymakers) see the trustworthiness of decentralized technologies, and 
their ability to produce trust;
-- study the institutional change that may be necessary to better 
incorporate technical trust producers in systems of accountability and 
oversight;

- work with legal scholars on new policy proposals aimed at building 
trust in decentralized technologies, and between users of such systems;
- contribute to the development of research methodology and infrastructure;
- organize workshops to discuss and disseminate the research findings.

###Requirements###

Candidates are expected to meet the following requirements.

You have:
- an interest in researching social diffusion/application/regulation of 
digital technologies;

- a background in one or more of the following disciplines:  -- Sociology;
-- Economics;
-- Political Science
-- Computer Science,
-- Media studies

with special focus on sociology of organizations, sociology or economics 
of innovation, or science and technology studies;


IVIR is the host institution of the Blockchain & Society Policy Research 
Lab (https://blockchain-society.science/) , founded in 2018 with the 
help of an ERC starting Grant by Dr Balázs Bodó. The work of the Lab 
focuses on the regulatory challenges around the latest iteration of 
decentralized technologies, such as blockchains and DLTs. We use the 
term ‘blockchain technology’ as a placeholder concept for technological 
ordering regimes, which, among others, promise impartial, automated, and 
ex-ante enforcement of technology-encoded rules and norms, and thus have 
the potential to enable new forms of trust-dependent activities. While 
blockchain technologies go through the cycles of hypes and busts, the 
ongoing innovation in this domain produces often highly contentious, and 
increasingly plausible visions of how our social, political, economic 
relationships could be re-organized.
Please apply here:

https://www.uva.nl/en/content/vacancies/2020/02/20-080-postdoctoral-socio-legal-research-scientist-at-ivir.html


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