Google Chair in Digital Innovation

The contents of this page will not be updated anymore as of September 2020 since the Google Chair in Digital Innovation ceased to exist.

Digital innovation is permeating a growing number of sectors of the economy, reshaping the way we live, work, interact. On the one hand, many markets are being disrupted and re-intermediated as a result of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, the Internet of Things, distributed ledgers such as blockchain, sensors and robotics. On the other hand, policymakers find it increasingly difficult to keep track of this evolution given the breath-taking pace of innovation, and the challenge of dealing with algorithms, collective intelligence, and often a patchy and uncertain set of legal rules. The College of Europe Chair in Digital Innovation will explore the impact of technological development on policymaking, with emphasis on the EU in a global context.

The main activities of the Chair were:

A course on “Policies for Digital innovation”, open to all students of the European Economic Studies Department, as well as to students of the Political and Governance Studies Department taking the European Public Policy Analysis option.
A Lecture series on new frontiers of Digital innovation, which was opened in January 2018 by an inaugural lecture of the Chairholder Prof. Andrea RENDA.
An Annual Conference on Digital Innovation, with several speakers from institutions, academia and industry, organized at the Bruges campus during the month of April 2018.