New Technologies – Ideas in ALL

Social Lives

Authors: Professor Aisling McMahon, Principal Investigator (PI) & Sinéad Masterson, Project Manager, PatentsInHumans

Professor Aisling McMahon presenting to attendees — Professor Aisling McMahon

On 20^th April 2023, the PatentsInHumans team were delighted to host the public launch event for the European Research Council (ERC) funded PatentsInHumans project in Maynooth University. The event was attended by over 45 individuals, including, members of the public, students and academics working in a range of disciplines (including law, biology, political science and business), practising lawyers, and technology transfer specialists.

The PatentsInHumans project, based in the School of Law and Criminology and ALL Institute at Maynooth University, commenced on the 1^st November 2022 and is a large interdisciplinary five-year project. It is funded by a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant and led by Professor Aisling McMahon. Alongside Professor McMahon, the PatentsInHumans team includes project manager, Sinéad Masterson, and postdoctoral researcher, Dr Opeyemi Kolawole. As the project develops, we will be recruiting more researchers to join the team in the coming months and years ahead.

Social Structures

Authors: Léa Urzel, PhD Researcher ERC Project DANCING, Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute, Department of Law, Maynooth University and Matthew McKenna, PhD Researcher at Maynooth University’s ALL Institute, Research Funded through the Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI) Centre for Research Training in Advanced Networks for Sustainable Societies (ADVANCE CRT)

Léa Urzel & Matthew McKenna

Last Wednesday, 26 January 2022, the European Commission (the Commission) released a draft Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles for the Digital Decade (the Declaration) for the European Parliament and Council to discuss and eventually endorse. With this initiative, the Commission aims to provide a reference point for all involved in the European Union’s (EU) digital transformation and to guide policy makers as well as private actors working with new technologies.

Last week’s Declaration responds to calls from the Parliament to ensure strong consumer protection and the respect of fundamental rights and principles (e.g. non-discrimination, data protection, net neutrality) in approaching the EU’s digital transformation. It further builds on previous Council initiatives, including the Tallinn Declaration on eGovernment, the Berlin Declaration on Digital Society and Value-Based Digital Government, and the Lisbon Declaration – Digital Democracy with a Purpose. The draft Declaration also follows various Commission initiatives introduced in 2021 such as the Commission’s Communication on the Digital Compass: the European way for the Digital Decade presented last March. It sets out its ‘vision, targets and avenues for a successful digital transformation of Europe in 2030’. In addition, the Commission proposed in September 2021, the Path to the Digital Decade, a governance framework to deliver the Digital Decade’s targets.

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