 Hello, everybody. My name is Amr Asher. I am the Assistant Director of Research at the Berkman Client Center for Internet and Society and also part of the Secretariat for the Global Network of Internet and Society Centers. And I'm really excited to talk with Angela Daley and Oles Andritschuk of the Strathclyde Center for Internet Law and Policy based in Glasgow in the UK. So pleased to have you both on the call to talk more about the Center and would love to just hear a little bit more from you about what the focus of the Center is, about the Center, who's involved in it, and what topics you're working on. Yeah, thanks so much, Amr, for having us. So we are a new center, but we're also an old center. So the Strathclyde Center for Internet Law and Policy actually has been around for a while, but it was kind of laying dormant for a few years at least. And both Oles and I recently joined Strathclyde about a year, 18 months, two years ago maximum. So since we both joined, we decided to kind of revive the Center and you're kind of seeing its current incarnation is quite new. So we've only really been around in this kind of new incarnation since the start of 2020, an auspicious year in some respects and not in others. And really, we wanted to kind of get Internet Law and Policy as a research area restarted at Strathclyde, which is a technology focused university. So it makes sense for a technology focused university to also be doing kind of engaged research and policy oriented work on digital technologies. So that we restarted the Center at the beginning of this year. So far, we've involved colleagues both from the Law School, so the Center is in the Law School at Strathclyde. We've involved colleagues from the Law School, PhD students, mainly from the Law School as well, who are working in this area, and also reaching out to some of our colleagues and collaborators, particularly from Computer Science in Strathclyde, who are all now members of the Center. We hosted a visiting PhD student from Italy, from the University of Machirata earlier this year. And we were looking forward to hosting more visitors. But then we all went digital. So our main activities this year have been actually hosting a series of webinars, originally seminars, when we'd like a couple in person at the beginning of the year. And since then, we've moved online. So we right now we're running a public webinar the first Friday of every month, which is open to anyone. And we also record usually record it and make the recordings available on our YouTube page. In terms of the kinds of topics we look at, it's very broad so far. So we have interest in competition, antitrust online, data protection, privacy, intellectual property, general kind of regulation, telecoms regulation as well, actually, but kind of internet regulation. And I mean, something that we've been discussing, although it's not quite explicit on our website yet, is really kind of what our focuses should be. And as we're based in Scotland, and the only proper internet law and policy center in Scotland, I mean, there are other centers, including part of the network who do bits and pieces. But quite a few of them are quite intellectual property oriented. But yes, since we have a bit of a broader remit, and there's also quite a lot been happening with the devolved government here, including in the context of the digital response to the pandemic, we did think that we should kind of orient ourselves a bit towards that. But we also have interests at the UK level, at the European level, and at the international level as well. Excellent. Thank you so much for that comprehensive answer. And Alice, is there anything that you'd like to add to that from your perspective as a co-director of the center? Indeed, in addition to what Angela has mentioned already, I think it is important to emphasize that we really welcome to attend our webinars. They are quite successful. We managed to generate very fruitful, open, productive, and really engaged discussion. We invite really high level experts. And it's a very friendly and very informative event. So every first Friday of the month, feel free to join us. Also, we participate in various public consultations. We produce papers in response to, for example, European Commission public inquiries or competition and market authorities or national governments. So we try to contribute to the broader, you know, not to limit ourselves to purely academic side of the issues and look also at the more contribution to society, to broader public involvement. Among other topics which we cover in addition to what Angela has mentioned, one of the most problematic areas these days is the recent reform of ex ante regulation in the area of competition law in the European Union and attempted to introduce Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, new competition tool, also online platforms and digital advertising market study. So these areas which are topical everywhere among the community of traditional competition law scholars and traditional internet law scholars, we are just in between of these areas and our expertise allows us to contribute meaningfully from both perspective, from the cluster of competition law and from the cluster of internet law. So I think that's great, that set of topics and the ones that you, Professor Daly mentioned, everything from as we think about telecom law to online privacy law to thinking about antitrust and competition. These are very much in addition to internet governance and commerce. These are very much core topic areas of many of the research centers within the global network of internet and society centers and areas where there's so much interdisciplinary expertise. So it's not, it's very much people that are coming from disciplinary orientations such as law, but that do have lots of exposure to lots of disciplines as we think about these hard questions facing the digital age. And I'm also reminded of a large project that the network is running that's being essentially shepherded by the Humboldt Center, the Berkman Klein Center in the Digital Asia Hub on all things related to digital transformation and the ethical questions around digital transformation. So we're taking a very broad umbrella approach to looking at digital transformation across sectors and industries and understanding what are the questions that we need to ask about impact on society. So, Oles, that was a really wonderful answer also to the next question that I was going to ask and you're welcome to add on to it, but I'd also like to hear Professor Jaley's response about what are you most excited about in the coming year? What are your plans and what would you like to see in the coming year? Recognizing that so many of our universities and contexts are disrupted by COVID, but I know that lots of work still goes on. So what gives you hope and what are you excited about? I think it's obviously the overarching theme which concerns the issue which you just have mentioned is to observe how rapidly our public perception of the role of the internet society is changing. And I think this transitionary, this emblematic point was Cambridge Analytica scandal after which the critical mass in society, I don't talk about expert groups, I'm talking about the general perception of the role of the internet in society is changing and the pendulum is shifting in the opposite direction, probably a little bit excessively, we try to attribute most of devices to those which we were verifying just a few years or maybe decades ago. So it's interesting from the socio-legal perspective to observe and try to comprehend and maybe somehow explain this broader socio-economic and maybe perhaps philosophical trend. This is one of the overarching themes which concerns most of us, I understand. And most specifically, we are interested in the very ambitious and very far-reaching attempts of the European Union perhaps to try to catch up with this kind of global digital race and we try to explain this regulatory equilibriestics which the the European Union tries to introduce these days because it's a very it's a very topical issue and in addition, it's very interesting issue. So it's going to be leaving aside all the difficulties and turbulences, it's going to be quite an interesting and productive year. Anything you'd like to add to that? Sure, yeah. So I think from my perspective as well the co-director from the management perspective and administrative perspective, I'm kind of well, it's been frustrating that some of our plans have not really come to fruition because of the disruption. Like Ulis was saying, we're having the webinar series is going very well, I think. And one of the things which is good about it is being able to connect with people who are not kind of geographically close to us. So we've had people from like lots of people that we know already and who are part of our community attending and participating in our webinars, but also people from all over the world as well. So there is kind of an upside to the disruption that we've kind of experienced from an operational point of view. So I would like that to continue. And even if we are able to go back to kind of more in-person events, it would be really good to have some kind of hybrid online aspect. And I think this is something that will continue after COVID, if we ever get after COVID, if that ever occurs. But from a personal and sort of my own research and policy oriented point of view, this coming year is going to be a really kind of interesting in all respects. You're also in the UK because we are, well, we have left the European Union and we're coming to the end of the transition period. So from the beginning of 2021, the UK it seems will be kind of out entirely and out of the kind of regulatory regime of the EU. So kind of precisely what happens and what that means for internet governance and policy is something that I'm interested to see and whether there will be like a free trade agreement with the US, whether the UK will be moving more towards the US on some internet governance issues will be something to watch or whether it will remain largely aligned with what is happening in the EU. And in any case, what happens in the EU will still have an effect on what happens here for a number of reasons. And also from the perspective of kind of the nations of the UK. So Scotland is one of the nations of the UK. It's kind of a federal system, but kind of not. But what kind of is happening at this level as well as something I mentioned already that the pandemic response has been somewhat different, including with regards to the digital aspects. We have a different app in Scotland, for instance, compared to England, and it's actually based on the Republic of Ireland app. Anyway, so how that kind of pans out, I think it's going to be really interesting, whether we go down a kind of Catalonia route of digital sovereignty and repression by the central state or not, whether it's something completely different, I think will be interesting. But I think already so many interesting things, but I think already we're seeing kind of divergences with the pandemic response. And I suspect that will continue for the foreseeable future. So these are the two things that I'm kind of interested in keeping an eye on. And I think will impact a lot of our work quite a bit in terms of we've been very oriented. And we, I mean, scholars in the UK have really looked quite a lot at and been intimately involved in EU discussions or in internet governance and policy. But I think this may change a bit in the coming year. At the Birken Klein Center, we also have a digital policy or digital pandemic working group that was formed earlier this year at the onset of the pandemic. And it's it's it's so interesting how these really critical issues of importance to almost everybody in society intersect with digital issues in such interesting ways. So for us, we've had the ability and the opportunity opportunity to work more closely with public health scholars and authorities with folks from medicine with folks who are thinking about public infrastructure and deployment. And so it really is another one of these very interdisciplinary locations within our work of topics that are of interest to of great interest to and of great impact to society. So my final question for you is really what and you may have already kind of given us a preview, but what are some of the papers or programs that you might have in the pipeline or opportunities for opportunities for research that that your community is is working through? What are what are some of those things that, again, you're you're probably working on right now or want to work on in the future? I guess we can tell you a bit about some of our personal stuff, but I think we are trying to move towards kind of maybe more of a coordinated centre. I wouldn't say series of publications but research. So kind of trying to combine common topics of interest for ourselves and for particularly also the PhD cohort as well. But honestly, I don't think we're quite there yet and we're kind of still mostly producing sort of our own papers rather than courts. So we can talk about that. But I suppose let's say hope I think I hope, you know, by the end of next year, we may have, you know, somewhere sort of centre projects and be producing more stuff kind of together. And that's part of our that's been part of some of our discussions about like where we want to focus on essentially. So I'm not really giving you a good answer to your question, but I don't honestly, all this can maybe add or he can give his own opinion on this. But I kind of think we're not quite there yet, but we can obviously talk about what we're doing as individuals. But we have, we are growing though we've got more particularly PhD students joining us. So I think once we can have more people and more kind of discussions about what we all want to do, I think we'll, I would hope we would be able to produce papers as a centre and kind of activities as a centre. And I know, you want to jump in. But just before you say that, I want to say that that's actually a great answer, because all the research centres within the network are actually very differently configured. And some are have more of an individual contributor model, some have more of a collaborative model, and lots of things in between. And it's actually a real asset of the network and the collaborative orientation of the network to help build that capacity at different centres. So if you are looking to go in a certain direction, say, more collaborative research or enabling better training of PhD students and others in the pipeline, there's there's so much knowledge within the network, but that's that's a really key area where people can really connect with you, you can connect with others, and we can share a lot of information there. But sorry, I think I interrupted Oles from trying to jump in. So please do. I don't think, thank you very much. I don't think I can say something very specific at this stage. What I wanted to highlight is my observation that now we are in the kind of unfortunate position of refusing applications from students who want to do PhD with us. There was a shortage when we started, but this this lacuna, this gap has been filled in completely very quickly. And we are trying to expand because we feel and we see objective criteria that we we cannot meet the demand both in terms of PhD, but also LLM. So we have very, very busy year in front of us and full of various trajectories in which the centre will be developing. So we are very enthusiastic and energetic. And I think it's the most important thing. We look in the same direction, we coordinate our action harmoniously. And it would be a pleasure to work with other centres on various, various occasions. And that's why basically, this is the main reason for us to take part in this event and to say thank you for coming up with this fantastic initiative and for coordinating it in such in such a productive manner. If I can add something also as well, I agree with everything Oles has said and also would like to thank you very much. I don't know how honest we're allowed to be, but I mean, we're running the centre on pretty much a zero budget. So I think that kind of limits. I think Oles was maybe hinting at some of the kind of resource limits. So we kind of have some human resource limits that we're well, we're only a certain amount of people at a certain level of seniority as well. And so I guess across the network of centres, there are probably very different kinds of resourcing. I guess the Berkman-Clem centre is probably, my imagination is that it's very well resourced, but I'd say we're not so well resourced. So we kind of have to, we're sort of limited by that. And I think we're trying to become better resourced both in terms of human resources and also kind of money and finance. But that is somewhat limiting of what we can do. And I think we're kind of interested in what can we do effectively with the kind of resources we have. And I think I'm particularly interested in learning from other centres about doing that and kind of going from being a fairly sort of like small and zero budget where we're doing, I think we're doing quite, I think anyway, I mean, others can judge, but I think we're doing a reasonable amount with the kind of resources we have. But I'm interested in sort of scaling up effectively in different ways. But that hasn't, as Ola said, that means that, you know, we don't necessarily, we're not obviously able to take on all the PhD students that we otherwise might like to, and even just things like, at least I sometimes get students coming to me and wanting to kind of be involved in research projects. And there's kind of a limit to that kind of coordination, because we just don't have enough resources. And so yeah, I think that's a big issue that we will be kind of working on more behind the scenes, I guess, in the coming year as well. But certainly I think the more prominent our centre is, and I think it's also becoming more prominent within our university too, that's sort of good for getting resources. And that's absolutely one of the challenges that's shared across so many different centres who are in so many different contexts and regions and resource environments. And even for the Berkman Klein Centre and for the Network of Centres itself, this Ethics of Digitisation Project is probably the first grant that's really gone to the network of centres, even though it doesn't really exist as an organisation, a formal, formally established organisation, it's really a network. So this is one thing that absolutely others in the network and Berkman Klein and many others I know would love to contribute to in terms of that conversation, and also to share what's worked and what hasn't. So that's a great place, I think, to really end this conversation, because it leaves us wanting more and to continue this conversation. I know that I'm eager to do that, but I'm so really appreciative of both of you to take the time, especially as I know it's late in the UK right now. But thank you again and we will connect again soon and deep appreciation from all of us at the Secretariat for the Network of Centres.