Study plan

The state exam consists of a defence of doctoral thesis and an oral exam. The defence is conducted in front of permanent or ad hoc committee. At defence, student is expected to explain the object of his or her research and summarize conclusions of the thesis. In following discussion, student is expected to react to submitted reviews and questions of the members of the committee. Regular timeframe of defence is approx. 60 min.
Oral exam is conducted in front of permanent or ad hoc committee. Student is expected to answer, without prior preparation, questions asked by members of the committee. The scope of question is limited to the following areas:
1. Concepts of virtualisation and actualisation
2. Concept of information, elements of organisation, law as an information system
3. Territoriality of law, information sovereignty of a state
4. Positivist, pragmatic and naturalist method in ICT law
5. Formalisation of law, recent issues in legal informatics
6. Algorithmic application of law
7. Virtualised promulgation of law
8. Code as a positive expression of normative will of a definition authority, relations between code and law
9. Regulatory structure of the Internet
10. Freedom of information and its forms in applicable law (free access to information, re-use of public sector information)
11. Freedom of expression and its protection by positive law (incl. comparative perspective)
12. Subjects in ICT law, legal personality of autonomous systems
13. Informational self-determination and its reflection the case-law of the ECHR
14. Privacy and its protection through private law.
15. Personal data protection.
16. Legal regulation of cross-border data transactions.
17. Concept and structure of non-distributive information rights
18. Concept and elements of cybersecurity, recent regulatory approaches
19. Cybersecurity incident as a use of force (incl. attribution)
20. Information feudalism and information anarchism
21. Economic value of data and protective legal tools (incl. IP)
22. Abuse of IP and abuse of market dominance in ICT
23. Free movement of goods and services and legal regulation of digital economy
24. Legal regulation of e-commerce (incl. consumer protection, unfair competition, platforms regulation)
25. Phenomenon of electronic documentation of legal acting (electronic identification and authentication, electronic signatures and their derivativesetc.)
26. Information analysis of legal procedures
27. Virtualisation of court and administrative procedures
28. Virtualisation of arbitration and new forms of dispute resolution (private ODR)
29. Legal regulation of autonomous robots
Regular timeframe of oral exam is 60 min.

This programme is primarily based on individual research, consultation and publications. It also partly consists of contact learning team activities and teaching. In particular, this study programme consists of the following components:

Individual research for dissertation – this is mostly important part of this programme that lead to the dissertation. Respective research topics are normally not suitable for collaborative research, so students regularly conduct their research individually, only with a guidance by the supervisor. Partial results of research are usually published as papers (see further “publications”). Individual research also consists of a research stay abroad.

Individual research in profiling courses – in profiling courses, students elaborate, under a supervision by respective course tutors, on particular research assignments. Results are presented as papers at semestral doctoral colloquia.

Publications – students are expected to present partial results of their research at domestic and international conferences and in papers. Structure and frequency of publications are subject to agreement between the student and the supervisor, provided that results are properly published at relevant conferences and journals. It is possible for students to meet the requirement of prior publication of a dissertation by publishing its parts as articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Teaching – in combined form of doctoral programme, students are expected to modestly participate on teaching of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in ICT law. Besides developing didactic experience, teaching also helps to improve presentation skills and abilities to present respective topics to broader public. It is also common that doctoral students prepare reviews for bachelor or master theses or student papers for scientific competitions.

Contact learning – this component is represented in this programme only to minimum extent. Presence learning (through lectures) is conducted only in general scientific methodology.

This programme has been running only for 4 years, so there are only 3 dissertations submitted up to date:
- Cybersecurity in the Czech Republic (defended)
- Technology neutrality principle in cybersecurity (defended)
- Enforceability of law through on-line dispute resolution (submitted)

Dissertations in making currently include:
- Digital evidence
- Law and new forms of semi-artificial life
- Personal data in time and space
- Legal issues in software-as-a-service
- The future of software law in the age of Artificial Interlligence
- Legitimacy of active cybersecurity countermeasures
- Legal Issues of Autonomous Technologies
- Software as a public investment