Prof. Dr. Matthias C. Kettemann, LL.M. (Harvard) is head of the research program “Regulatory Structures and the Emergence of Rules in Online Spaces” at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI). His team investigates the rules under which new forms and practices of social understanding and self-assurance emerge in digital communication spaces, and especially in social networks.
After studying law in Graz, Geneva and as a Fulbright and Boas scholar at Harvard School, he completed his doctorate with a thesis on the legal status of the individual in international law. In 2014, he was called to the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders” at Goethe University Frankfurt as a postdoctoral researcher, where he habilitated with Prof. Kadelbach and Prof. Vesting at the Institute for Public Law at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. His thesis was on the normative order of the internet and he was awarded the authorisation to teach international law, internet law and legal theory. After substitutions in Heidelberg and Jena, he followed the call to the professorship for innovation, theory and philosophy of law at the Institute for Theory and Future of Law at the University of Innsbruck in autumn 2021.
Other Activities
In addition to his work at the HBI, Matthias C. Kettemann is the head of the research group “Global Constitutionalism and the Internet” and the research project “The Public International Law of the Internet” at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) in Berlin. He is also the director of the Innsbruck Quantum Ethics Lab, the rapporteur for quantum computing at the UNESCO World Commission on Ethics in Science and Technology (COMEST), a member of the board and the research group leader for “Platform and Content Governance” at the Sustainable Computing Lab at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, as well as the AI theme sponsor for the funding guideline on innovation impact assessment at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMFTR).
