WhatNext.Law has awarded its first PhD Research Grant to Daniela Antão, a student at NOVA School of Law, to support the development of her doctoral research project entitled “The General Theory of Legal Transaction Applied to Platform Contracts in the Digital Attention Economy: Contract Law, Unfair Commercial Practices, Design, and Unjust Enrichment.”
The proposal was recognised for its innovative nature, academic depth, and social and legal relevance, fully aligning with WhatNext.Law’s mission to promote advanced research on emerging topics at the intersection of law, technology, and society.
The doctoral project aims to:
-Apply the general theory of legal transactions to digital platform contracts, with a particular focus on the attention economy;
-Operationalise unfair commercial practices standards, fostering a culture of compliance from the early stages of digital product design (compliance by design);
-Explore the concept of unjust enrichment as a legal mechanism for promoting justice and economic rebalancing in contexts involving the exploitation of data and user attention, even in the absence of quantifiable material damages.
The research will be carried out in collaboration with CEDIS – Research & Development Centre on Law and Society, with a strong interdisciplinary approach and close ties to other academic units of NOVA University Lisbon, such as NOVA IMS.
By awarding this grant, WhatNext.Law reaffirms its commitment to supporting high-quality research, encouraging critical legal thinking, and contributing to the development of robust legal solutions that address the challenges of the contemporary digital society.
