Call for Applications: Research Fellows Programme [2026–2028]
Deadline: [23:59 CET, 30 September]
The Brussels Privacy Hub invites applications for its Research Fellows Programme. The programme organises the Hub’s fellows into thematic/regional research clusters, each with a research agenda and expected outputs. Fellows publish through the Working Paper Series and the Hub’s blog, take part in research meetings, and contribute to the Hub’s events.
The research clusters and regional desks
The programme runs on two axes. Nine thematic clusters set the research agenda, and four regional desks bring comparative depth to it. Applicants may name one or two of the thirteen, in either group or across both.
Thematic clusters
1. AI Governance. AI regulation and its interaction with data protection law, the legal bases for training and deploying models, automated decision-making, and the allocation of responsibility along the AI value chain.
2. Data Flows, Adequacy and Global Governance. International transfers and adequacy, the extraterritorial reach of data protection laws, and the convergence and divergence of regulatory models across regions.
3. Enforcement, Remedies and Collective Redress. Supervisory practice and cooperation between authorities, judicial remedies, representative actions, and compensation for nonmaterial harm.
4. Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. Data protection in the policing and criminal justice context, cross-border access to electronic evidence, investigative technologies, and the safeguards that govern their use.
5. Cybersecurity. Security obligations across data protection and cybersecurity regimes, incident notification and disclosure duties, and the tension between security measures and the rights of the people they monitor.
6. Data Economy. Data spaces, access and sharing obligations, the governance of data as an economic resource, and the fit between data legislation and data protection law.
7. Platform Regulation, Competition and Data. Platform governance regimes, the interplay between data protection and competition law, and the regulation of online advertising and recommender systems.
8. Digital Finance. Open finance and payment data, digital currencies and the processing they involve, and the data protection questions that follow from financial supervision.
9. Privacy-Enhancing Technologies. Anonymisation, pseudonymisation and synthetic data, cryptographic techniques in regulatory practice, and what the law should expect of a technical safeguard.
Regional desks (each desk covers the full span of the Hub’s subject matter as it develops in one part of the world).
10. Africa. Subregional frameworks and national data protection laws, the institutional design and resourcing of supervisory authorities, and the regulation of digital identity, mobile money and AI adoption across the continent.
11. Asia-Pacific. Drawn widely, from East and SouthEast Asia through South Asia to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. Data protection statutes, AI and platform regulation, data localisation and crossborder transfer rules, and the distinctive relationship between regulation, industrial policy and state access to data.
12. Latin America. Data protection and digital regulation across the region, from constitutional and habeas data traditions to the newer data protection statutes and AI initiatives, together with the enforcement capacity of the authorities that apply them.
13. United States and Canada. Sectoral and state-level privacy regulation in the United States, federal legislative proposals, and the enforcement practice of the FTC and state attorneys general. In Canada, the federal private-sector regime and its long-running reform, the provincial statutes and the guidance and findings of the Privacy Commissioner. Across both, the emerging approaches to AI and platform regulation, and the transatlantic and interAmerican questions that follow.
Who we are looking for
Candidates must be able to work fluently in English. There is no residence or nationality requirement, and the programme runs online, applications from outside Europe are equally welcome.
What a fellow undertakes
Over a two-year term, each fellow:
Work produced under the affiliation is expected to meet the scientific standards of the Hub.
What the Hub offers
The position is not remunerated. The Hub offers no salary, stipend, or reimbursement of travel or subsistence costs.
Term
The term runs for two years and is renewable. Renewal is not automatic and depends on whether the commitments above were met.
How to apply
Send the following to BrusselsPrivacyHub@vub(dot)be, with the subject line ‘BPH Fellows Programme, [surname]’, no later than [23:59 CET, 30 September]:
Applications should arrive as PDF files. Incomplete applications and applications received after the deadline cannot be considered.
Contact
For any enquiry about this call, write to BrusselsPrivacyHub@vub(dot)be.