Tilburg Institute
for Law, Technology,
and Society
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Foreword
Dr. Anton Vedder, Chairman of the Tilburg
Institute for Law Technology and Society
The Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT) celebrates
its 20th anniversary! A lot has changed during TILT’s lifetime. What has
remained though is TILT’s typical culture of solidarity, warm relationships
among the team members and being prepared to stand in for each other if
needs be - without any doubt the cornerstones of TILT’s success. This success
has materialized in the outstanding ratings of both TILT’s research and teaching
programmes in various national and international assessments. We do not just
celebrate our 20th anniversary; we are proud to celebrate 20 years of excellence!
TILT started operating in 1994 as a centre for research into Law and Information
Technology led by Prof. Corien Prins at the Tilburg Law School. Already within a
few years, the centre began to expand. Around the start of the new millennium
the scope of the research was broadened, so that the regulation of emerging
technologies, such as neuro-, bio- and nano technology, was included. The
multidisciplinary approach, already present at the start, was further increased by
the involvement of ethicists, philosophers, social scientists, engineers, and science
and technology studies researchers.
Currently, TILT is an international team of 30 staff members with English as
working language. In addition there are approximately 20 external PhD researchers
and guest lecturers. Each year, more than 50 students from the Netherlands and
abroad find their way to TILT’s graduate programme of Law and Technology.
In the years to come, TILT will embark on new activities. It will go on to innovate its
teaching both on graduate and on postgraduate levels. It will expand its research
activities in the domains of care and well-being, cyber security, and robotics. It
will also start to experiment with new collaborative activities with relevant partner
institutes at Tilburg University and elsewhere and with private partners.
Would you like to keep track of these exciting developments? Please, follow us at
our site: www.tilburguniversity.edu/tilt. Or pay us a visit by for instance attending
one of the many meetings for practitioners and academics that we organize on a
regular basis. We will be glad to welcome you!
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About TILT
The Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT)
conducts teaching and research into the regulation of
technologies and technology-related societal innovation.
TILT is one of the most prominent European research
and education institutes in this area. TILT is consistently
ranked a top institute for research and education
by the Legal Research and Education Assessment
Committees.TILT’s expertise covers a wide range
of topics related to developments in ICT and nano-,
bio-, neuro-technology and robotics – technologies
that are currently flourishing thanks to their rapidly
evolving ICT infrastructures. These developments
are studied from a multidisciplinary perspective
– law, ethics, public administration, social
sciences and technology – in the contexts of
important domains of society. Topics include
e-government, e-commerce, e-health, trust,
technology adoption and legitimacy, privacy,
identity management, liability, cybercrime,
public security, intellectual property rights,
networks and innovation, and governance. An
overarching feature of the institute’s research
and educational programmes is a focus on
the mutual relationships between technological
developments, regulation, and normative
outlooks. See for more information www.tilburguniversity.edu/tilt.
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TILT Research
TILT’s research is mainly performed within large international (EU-funded)
and national (NWO and publicly-privately funded) projects. TILT’s input in
these projects is guided by an overarching five-year research programme.
The overall aim of this programme is to gain a deeper understanding
of the complex ways in which technology, regulation, and normative
outlooks interact and shape each other. We investigate the ways in which
technological developments affect regulation, basic societal patterns and
normative frameworks and vice versa. Therefore, the research not only
focuses on the various dilemmas in regulating emerging technologies,
for example, combining security with privacy and freedom with ownership
of information. It also explores system transitions and shifts in roles and
responsibilities, for instance the transformation of the role of patients in
the organization of care by telecare applications and the impact of these
changes on traditional patterns of trust attribution and the division of
individual, professional and organizational responsibilities. TILT plays
an active role in shaping research agendas in national and international
settings.
“It is fascinating
how studying the
regulation of emerging
technologies deepens
your understanding
of the role of law in
21st-century society.”
Bert Jaap Koops, Professor
Regulation and Technology
TILT Teaching
TILT offers various courses in Law and Technology for advanced
students in law and related fields. The cornerstone of TILT’s education
programme is its Master’s programme in Law and Technology. This LL.M.
course started in September 2005. The programme attracts 50 students from
all over the world on a yearly basis. The programme focuses on regulatory and
legal aspects of the introduction of innovative technologies. It includes courses
on intellectual property rights management, legal aspects of biotechnology, risk
management and regulation, and ethics of technology. Students are trained in
assessing the mutual relationships between technologies and society, through
a profound interdisciplinary knowledge of technology, law, and society. In
individual courses extra attention is paid to typical requirements of lawyers
practice. Additional seminars are provided on topical developments.
TILT also teaches various tailor made courses at postgraduate levels, for
instance, in e-commerce, ICT contracts, privacy and data protection, intellectual
property, public information law, and cybercrime, especially for PhD students
and for practitioners.
Praise for TILT’s Law &
technology Master
In the 2013 edition of the ‘Keuzegids Hoger Onderwijs’ (Holland’s most
important independent brochure for students to facilitate their choice of studies)
TILT’s Law and Technology master is rated among the best specialized law
master programmes. Among the masters in law and technology or ICT it is rated
the best. The curriculum receives praise by both students and scholars. Contact
opportunities with staff are also rated excellent.
“The Master’s programme in Law and Technology was an excellent
choice with interesting yet challenging subjects, great support from the
professors which in turn allowed me to develop my own special field of
expertise. My education in TILT proved to be an essential cornerstone
for the launch of my career in the field of cyber security.”
Mari Kert, Cybersecurity Policy Manager European Organisation for Security
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Partnerships
TILT is one of the founding parties and board
members of the recently established Brainport Centre
for Technology and Law, together with TU/e (Eindhoven
University of Technology), City of Eindhoven, and law
offices. The centre will deploy activities concerning the
regulation of technological innovations and function as a
forum and sounding board for entrepreneurs, policy makers
and relevant governmental agencies on a regional, national
and international level. www.brainporttechlaw.nl
TILT participates in the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate
Programme of Law, Science, and Technology (together with
the universities of Bologna, Turin, Barcelona Autonoma,
Vilnius, Luxemburg, and Hannover). This programme
attracts 12 PhD students per year. www.last-jd.eu
TILT is one of the founding participants in the Privacy and
Identity Lab (PI.lab), together with Radboud University
Nijmegen’s Department of Computer Science, TNO and SIDN. Part of its applied research on privacy, data
protection and identity management is being performed
within PI.lab. pilab.nl
“Coping with contemporary privacy issues
requires a multidisciplinary approach;
we need to understand the technology,
ethical and legal landscape and business
processes.”
Ronald Leenes, Professor Regulation by Technology
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Projects
FI-STAR is a European project that will establish early trials in the health care domain
building on Future Internet (FI) technology exploiting the results of European FI-PPP
Phase 1. FI-STAR will deploy and execute 7 early trials across Europe, serving more than 4
million people. The consortium consists of 26 partners. www.fi-star.eu
“TILT’s involvement in European projects offers
a great opportunity to meet with scientists and
experts and practitioners from all over Europe and
to conduct truly inter-disciplinary research and to
contribute to the implementation of that research!”
Eleni Kosta , Assistant Professor Technology Regulation
Accountability for Cloud and Other Future Internet Services (A4Cloud)
is a European Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) collaborative
project under Sub-programme Area “Trustworthy ICT”. A4Cloud
aims to increase trust in cloud computing by devising methods and
tools through which cloud stakeholders can be made accountable for the
privacy and confidentiality of information held in the cloud. These methods and
tools will contribute to the governance of cloud activities, providing transparency
and assisting legal, regulatory and socio-economic policy enforcement. The Project
Consortium consists of 13 partners including academia and industry from eight European
nations. www.a4cloud.eu
Trusted Healthcare Services (THeCS) is carried out within the framework of COMMIT,
a public-private research consortium working on trustworthy electronic environments
for chronic patient care. Close partners are the Dutch Universities of Technology, the
Netherlands biggest rehabilitation institution Roessingh, Roessingh Research and
Development, the Waag Society, Capgemini and Irdeto.
www.commit-nl.nl/projects/trusted-healthcare-services
TILT participates in many other national and European projects. These include RoboLaw,
which investigates the law and ethics of innovative robotics and prosthetics applications,
PROFILING, which studies how data protection laws in the EU member states deal with
the privacy risks of profiling technologies, and COURAGE, which is developing an agenda
for European research in cybercrime and cyberterrorism. 11
TILT
Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Scociety
P.O. Box 90153
5000 LE Tilburg
The Netherlands
Phone: +31 13 466 81 99
Email: info-tilt@uvt.nl
Website: www.tilburguniversity.edu/tilt
Visiting address
Tilburg University
Montesquieu Building
Prof. Cobbenhagenlaan 221
5037 DE Tilburg
The Netherlands
Graphic design: Beelenkamp Ontwerpers
Mailing address