Law01 - Online harms, women’s online safety and the law

Supervisors: Prof Olga Jurasz and Dr Ksenia Bakina (Centre for Protecting Women Online, and The Open University Law School, Faculty of Business and Law).

Law - PhD Studentship

The Centre for Protecting Women Online is inviting applications to join our PhD programme beginning February 2025. Your application will need to be based on the advertised project below:

Law01 - Online harms women's online safety and the law

If your application is successful, you will join the Faculty of Business and Law (home of the Centre for Protecting Women Online) where we conduct research of the highest international standard and embrace economic, public and social value consistent with the mission of The Open University. You will work with subject specialists to develop an original contribution to knowledge as well as your skills in research, communication, engagement and impact.

PhD studentships are based on full-time study for three years at the Milton Keynes campus. Full-time students are expected to live within an easily commutable distance of Milton Keynes, meet their supervisors face-to-face on a monthly basis, and are advised to be on campus or another site of research a minimum of two days per week. Part-time students are expected to live within the UK and attend campus when required. Please note that our PhD and MPhil degrees cannot be studied online or via distance learning.

Fully-funded studentships cover tuition fees, and a stipend (circa £19,237 per annum) for 36 months. A generous research training support grant is allocated to all students accepted into the programme to cover research-related costs including fieldwork and conferences.

Applicants for the PhD programme should have minimum qualifications of an upper second class honours degree (2:1 or an equivalent) or usually a specialist masters in a subject relevant to the intended study with a strong research element.

Your application must include:

• a proposal which should be at least 1,000 words and no longer than 2,000 words, indicating your knowledge of the literature, methods and likely approach to your project of interest (guidance on how to write your research proposal is available here)
• a covering letter indicating your suitability for the project
• a fully-completed application form
• copies of degree certificates and all transcripts relevant to your application
• an IELTS Academic Exam certificate (if applicable). If you are not from, or do not have a full degree certificate from, one of the countries in the tables on page 17 of the application form (international), you will need to submit an IELTS Academic Exam certificate with your application by the deadline. A minimum overall score of 6.5 and a minimum score of 6.0 in each of the four categories (or approved equivalent) are required in order to make the application process fair and equal for all applicants. You should have your level of proficiency certified through a provider approved by UK Visas and Immigration, and provide your certificate and grade with your application. Test certificates must be no older than 2 years (from date of submission of application). IELTS is the only proof of English competency we accept at The Open University. There are no exceptions or waivers to having an IELTS exam certificate. This is regardless of other qualifications, career experience, other academic experience or English-medium education that took place in countries not on the aforementioned list.

Interviews will form part of the selection process and will be held in November 2024 either in person or remotely via videoconference. Applicants are expected to give a 10 minute presentation about their proposal, followed by a question and answer session lasting up to 45 minutes.

Keywords: online harms, online safety, online violence against women, online gender-based violence, law and policy.

Project Description

We live in cyber-physical-social spaces where lines between ‘online’ and ‘offline’ are increasingly blurred but also where violence against women and girls (VAWG) thrives. It’s therefore more important now than ever for research to address this contemporary societal challenge.

Despite the prevalence of online harms in recent years and steady increase in law and policy responses to this phenomenon (e.g. Online Safety Act 2023; EU AI Act 2024; EU Digital Services Act), there is still a limited understanding of their full spectrum and impact. This is particularly the case with online harms experienced by women. These harms are often narrowly understood, leading to misguided, fragmented approaches and incoherent responses. Further, rapid development of technology and AI has seen replication of pre-existing gendered bias stemming from historical data reflecting societal inequalities.

The existing legal and policy measures do not go far enough to ensure the safety of women and girls online. The adopted laws and regulations are largely gender-blind which ignores the experiences and disproportionate impact of online harms on women and girls. Further, there is a lack of recognition of the harms suffered by women and a failure to appreciate the damage to participatory rights that emanates from unchecked and unchallenged online abuse motivated by gender.

We welcome PhD proposals that address the theme of this call. In particular, we welcome proposals exploring (albeit not limited to) the following perspectives:

• Legal responses to technology-facilitated violence against women and girls (including online violence).
• Feminist perspectives on online harms.
• Legal aspects of online safety of women and girls.
• Gender-based approach to online platform regulation.
• International law and policy responses addressing online violence against women and girls.

We welcome projects that employ legal methodology as well as those which present an inter-disciplinary approach. In line with the Open University’s mission (‘open to methods’), we are open to receiving proposals that draw on other disciplinary methodological approaches which complement the legal methodologies chosen. Please see the website of the Centre for Protecting Women Online to familiarise yourself with disciplines represented within the Centre.

Funding

Please note that this opportunity is for a full-time, fully funded PhD studentship (i.e. fees and maintenance) funded through Research England. UK and international applicants are eligible to apply.

Centre for Protecting Women Online

The successful candidate will be based at the Centre for Protecting Women Online at The Open University and supervised by academic staff at the Centre. The Centre for Protecting Women Online is funded by a £7.7 million grant from Research England. It is a vehicle for understanding and addressing challenges posed to women’s safety online through a novel, interdisciplinary and ambitious research agenda. This is combined with cross-sectoral collaborative outputs and interventions which inform law, policy, technology development and practice to reduce online harms suffered by women and girls. The Centre’s work aims to minimise anti-social behaviours online whilst promoting pro-social behaviours and help build tech/software that helps ensure accountability, credibility and facilitate justice. The Centre is led by Professor Olga Jurasz and the work of the Centre is delivered in five interwoven Work Streams: Law & Policy, Human Behaviour, The Future of Responsible Tech, Ethical and Responsible Tech/AI and Policing.

Supervisors

Olga Jurasz is Professor of Law at The Open University and Director of the Centre for Protecting Women Online. Her research expertise is in legal responses to violence against women and feminist approaches to governance of online spaces. Professor Jurasz is a leading voice in the field of law & violence against women. She published her research widely, including two books: Online Misogyny as a Hate Crime: A Challenge for Legal Regulation (Routledge 2019) and Violence Against Women, Hate and Law: Perspectives from Contemporary Scotland (2022). Professor Jurasz’s expertise has been used by governments, international organisations and third sector organisations to influence changes in law and policy in areas of online violence against women, criminal law, online communications and State obligations concerning violence against women. Professor Jurasz provided expert advice to the Council of Europe regarding the development of the first recommendation on the digital dimension of violence against women by GREVIO - the Council of Europe’s independent expert body responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. Professor Jurasz has been appointed by the Council of Europe to be an Independent Expert to the Committee of Experts on combating technology-facilitated violence against women and girls. She is a member of the TechUK Violence Against Women and Girls Digital and Tech Working Group and regularly appears in the media as an expert commentator on contemporary matters in her research areas.

Dr Ksenia Bakina’s research focuses on legal responses to image based sexual abuse and online violence against women. Dr Bakina examines the relationship between online abuse and wider issues of pornography, power, and consent. Her work addresses the impact that law has on the removal of private sexual images from online platforms. Dr Bakina is also a co-editor of the Encyclopaedia of Data Protection and Privacy (Sweet & Maxwell). Prior to joining the Centre for Protecting Women Online, she worked at Privacy International, where she focused on litigation and legal advocacy challenging social media monitoring, surveillance, and other invasive uses of technology by governments and private companies.

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