• Offered for Year: 2025/26

• Module Leader(s): Professor Ben Farrand
• Lecturer: Dr Ilke Turkmendag

• Owning School: Newcastle Law School
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Aims

This core module for the Emerging Technologies and the Law LLM is intended to provide students with a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the complexities of regulating new and emerging technologies, as well as considering emerging approaches to existing technological issues. It serves as a foundation for the consideration of specific technological areas/sectors in other modules such as Cybersecurity Law and Policy, Digital Labour Platforms, & AI, and as such touches upon a wide variety of different areas of law and technology, using interdisciplinary methods. The module also features the use of case studies as a way of demonstrating the complexities and challenges when faced with regulating technologies, which can change and adapt each academic year based on current trends, issues of legal controversy or emerging research issues in a way that ensures the continued relevance of the modules and interest of students. It is intended to be responsive to student interests, allowing for a student-centred adaptation of the curriculum year-on-year, without losing sight of the underlying objective of furnishing students with the understanding of law and governance as applied to technological issues.

Outline Of Syllabus

The proposed outline of the syllabus is as follows, with the proviso that case studies will change each year dependent upon current issues, controversies and developments.


1) An introduction to Law, Science, Technology and Society

2) Regulation and regulatory theory – how do we govern new technologies?

3) Science, Technology and Society: Insights from Science and Technology Studies

4) Technological innovation and society: societies and technological innovation, responsible innovation and ethics

5) Risk regulation and the precautionary principle

6) Case Study I (indicative subject: data governance)

7) Case Study II (indicative subject: quantum computing)

8) Case Study III (indicative subject: gene editing)

9) Case Study IV (indicative subject: longevity)

10) Drawing the threads together: a conclusion on technology governance

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Students’ main form of teaching contact will be in the form of small-group teaching sessions, which will combine elements of interactive lecture, teacher-directed dialogue, and student-led discussions. These will be facilitated by the structured research and reading activities, where in advance of each case study session, students will be expected to read and take notes on one of the pieces provided on that particular technology and its legal challenges, reflect on the main arguments of that piece, and then search legal databases or other available resources for academic articles providing contrasting opinions or other perspectives to the assigned paper. Students will be expected to use this structured research activity to present a position in the workshop, allowing for a dedicated student-led approach to the classes.

In addition to these formal classes, there will be a number of drop-in/surgery hours, where students can ask questions regarding course content, specific readings, or to prepare for the assessment for the module. Directed research and reading will be prepared for each session, which allows students to develop greater insight into the areas of technology governance discussed in each workshop, with an additional reading list provided on Canvas as further readings or a library list, which can then be used by students drafting their research proposal during their assessment preparation and completion.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The first assessment for the module provided in the form of a 5 minute presentation about a chosen topic of technology regulation. They indicate the chosen field of technology, the potential problems/challenges in regulating that technology, and present a possible response to these challenges. The feedback provided in this assessment will directly prepare students for their final assessed portfolio for the module, and has been designed as a summative with a clear formative dimension in order to ensure effective student engagement with the task.

The final summative component is a 2,500-word regulatory portfolio. Students will develop a portfolio related to the object of regulation identified in the student presentation, final approval of which is subject to module leader approval. Students complete a pre-defined template, expanding upon the technology field, the challenges in that field identified, drawing from their presentation to refine their arguments, and then proposing an approach to the regulation of that subject, whether in the form of self- or co-regulation, or state-based legislative interventions, along with a justification for their choice of approach. This tests both their understanding of the complexity of regulation, awareness of regulatory theories applicable to new technologies, and the development of subject-specific knowledge about existing regulatory regimes.

Reading Lists

• LAW8577's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• LAW8577's Timetable