Exploring power, digital technology and global politics through a study of disputes between the United Kingdom and technology companies

Recent events such as the decision to remove news items from Facebook in Australia or the suspension of President Trump's accounts from various social media networks have highlighted how the role of technology companies in society is increasingly contested on the basis of power. This concern over power is reflected in the increasing numbers of regulatory investigations and actions by actors like the Competition and Markets Authority and the Federal Trade Commission. However, the power of technology companies is also observed in non-economic fields as technology companies impact freedom of expression and other digital rights, digital accessibility and countless other areas.

International Relations (IR) has so far neglected a thorough conceptualisation of technology companies' influence and authority in global politics. To challenge this omission, I adopt a social construction of technology (SCOT) approach to theorize the power of technology companies as international actors and digital technologies as institutions. I study three disputes around digital technology between the United Kingdom and technology companies to examine the relationship between technology companies and state power.

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Cybersecurity will train over 55 experts in multi-disciplinary aspects of cybersecurity, from engineering to crime science and public policy.

Short term impacts are associated with the research outputs of the 55+ research projects that will be undertaken as part of the doctoral studies of CDT students. Each project will tackle an important cybersecurity problem, propose and evaluate solutions, interventions and policy options. Students will publish those in international peer-reviewed journals, but also disseminate those through blog posts and material geared towards decision makers and experts in adjacent fields. Through industry placements relating to their projects, all students will have the opportunity to implement and evaluate their ideas within real-world organizations, to achieve short term impact in solving cybersecurity problems.

In the longer term graduates of the CDT will assume leading positions within industry, goverment, law enforcement, the third sector and academia to increase the capacity of the UK in being a leader in cybersecurity. From those leadership positions they will assess options and formulate effective interventions to tackle cybercrime, secure the UK's infrastructure, establish norms of cooperation between industries and government to secure IT systems, and become leading researcher and scholars further increasing the UK's capacity in cybersecurity in the years to come. The last impact is likely to be significant give that currently many higher education training programs do not have capacity to provide cybersecurity training at undergraduate or graduate levels, particularly in non-technical fields.

The full details of our plan to achieve impact can be found in the "Pathways to Impact" document.