Regulating the Digital Society: UK and EU Perspectives
| Dates: | 1 July 2026 |
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| Times: | All day |
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| What is it: | Workshop |
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| Organiser: | Digital Futures |
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| Who is it for: | Early years, University staff, External researchers, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public |
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Join us & explore how the UK and EU member states are approaching the regulation of the digital society in the the post-Brexit era!
The increasing digitisation of daily life poses important questions for policy makers, service providers and academics about whether and how we can regulate these technologies to ensure they work for the benefit of society. This workshop, Regulating the Digital Society: UK and EU Perspectives, seeks to bring together scholars and practitioners to examine the rapidly evolving regulatory landscape across Europe and explore the nature and implications of the different governance models that are emerging. Within the European Union we see an increasing focus on designing and adopting a more comprehensive ‘horizontal’ framework of digital regulation — ranging from the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act to strengthened GDPR enforcement and emerging AI governance mechanisms. By contrast, the United Kingdom in the post?Brexit environment has shifted to a more flexible and ‘light touch’ framework that is designed to promote innovation and relies on sectoral regulators to tackle specific evidence-based harms. Understanding the impact of these divergent trajectories on the economic, social and political performance of these nations, and their longer-term implications for citizen rights and the role of the state in governing digital platforms and data practices is an increasingly important and timely topic for investigation.
This workshop invites papers that explore these themes from theoretical, empirical, and particularly comparative perspectives. Topics may include (but are not limited to):
- Divergent models of digital governance and regulatory design in the UK and EU
- Sustainability, infrastructure, and the environmental footprint of digital technologies
- Approaches to evaluating regulatory effectiveness, enforcement, and policy impact across jurisdictions
- Public attitudes, trust, and legitimacy in relation to digital regulation
- Digital identity, verification, and age assurance systems, and their implications for rights and inclusion
- Information integrity, foreign interference, and the regulation of elections and democratic processes
- Platform governance and accountability, including content moderation and systemic risk management
- Public sector digitalisation, automated decision-making, and the governance of state use of data and AI
- Regulation of AI systems and general-purpose technologies, including risk, accountability, and oversight
- Digital literacy and capability-building as complements to formal regulation
- Digital markets, competition, and consumer protection, including gatekeeping and market power
- Transparency and accountability in political microtargeting and online behavioural advertising
Spaces are limited. We will prioritise participation by those seeking to give full papers as part of the panel sessions. If you are interested to present a paper for the workshop please send a title and abstract to kitty.lo@manchester.ac.uk by May 4th, we will confirm attendance by the week of May 11th.
There is limited funding available to support travel costs for early?career researchers, particularly those who do not have access to other institutional funding. To apply for this support, please send Kitty Lo at kitty.lo@manchester.ac.uk the following information:
Your name, institution, and job role/title
Confirmation they are an early?career researcher
Your travel origin and estimated costs
Do you have any other funding sources
Travel and Contact Information
