The EU Digital Technologies and Policies conference is just around the corner! Curious about the programme and the experts who will speak on 14 and 15 May here in Brussels? Have a look below!
We bring together researchers, professionals, scholars, and policymakers to discuss impactful digital technologies shaping society and the economy in the EU.
The conference takes place in Brussels over two days and consists of six sessions. Among the topics are digital technology advances and applications (AI, quantum, nanotechnologies), digital infrastructures, hardware, and materials (chip design, semiconductors, mining technologies, supply chains), energy and sustainability, data economy, digital rights and sovereignty, and the impact of EU digital regulation.
Programme – EUDTP
This programme is subject to change.
Day 1: Technologies
Christopher Cripps, Vicepresident for Europe and International Affairs, IP Paris.
Chair: Sonia Vanier (École Polytechnique-IP Paris).
- Trustworthy AI (Natalia Díaz-Rodríguez, UGR)
- LLMs and Symbolic AI (Mehwish Alam, TélecomParis-IP Paris)
- AI conditional content generation for multimodal data (Vicky Kalogeiton, École Polytechnique-IP Paris)
- Unboundling social networks and collaborative recommendation (Anne Alombert, Université Paris 8)
- AI to accelerate fusion engineering (María Ortiz de Zúñiga, F4E)
Chair: Miguel Colom (ENS Paris Saclay).
- Submarine communication cables: security and resilience in the EU (Stefano De Luca, EPRS)
- ChatControl EU Regulation: Impact and Risk (Diane Leblanc-Albarel, KU Leuven)
- Sustainability fundamentals and the case of the Internet (Romain Jacob, ETHZ)
- Datacenter energy footprint and LLM power inference (Patrice Nivaggioli, Cisco Systems)
- Life-cycle emissions of ICT infrastructures (Jukka Manner, Aalto University)
Chair: Hervé Debar (TSP-IP Paris).
- RISC-V-based chip design in the EU (Rafael Gomà, BSC)
- Navigating complexity in high-precision semiconductors systems (Calina Ciuhu, TU/e)
- Governance of post-quantum cryptography transition in the EU (Laima Jančiūtė, UvA)
- The lithium mining project in Jadar and the green transition in Europe (Ivanka Popović, University of Belgrade)
Chair: Eduardo Oliva (UPM).
- Enabling the hydrogen economy (Kim Krüger, TUM)
- Magnetic confinement fusion in Europe (Juan Knaster, F4E)
- Inertial fusion (Markus Roth, TU Darmstadt)
- Integration of renewable energies in modern power systems (Georges Kariniotakis, Mines-PSL)
- Methods for integrated energy and transportation networks (Bissan Ghaddar, DTU and Ivey Business School)
Day 2: Policy
Christel Schaldemose, Vicepresident of the European Parliament
Chair: Michael Adam (EPRS).
- Current EU priorities in the digital area (Polona Car, EPRS)
- AI strategy in the EU (Claudio Feijóo, UPM)
- AI for human interaction (Andrew Mcstay, Bangor)
- Open-Source AI Models as Software: Freedoms and Rights in the EU AI Act (Simona Ramos, UPF)
- Survive or Thrive? Legal impact of AI Act in business (Neringa Gaubiené, Vilnius University)
- Digital identity, the specific case of age verification (Olivier Blazy, École Polytechnique-IP Paris)
Chair: Juan-Antonio Cordero-Fuertes (École Polytechnique-IP Paris).
- Digital rights, personal data collection and inferences: the case of gender (Gloria González-Fuster, VUB)
- Legal challenges of Text and Data Mining (Arturas Grumulaitis, Vilnius University)
- Dark patterns and consumer protection in the EU: legal challenges and policy responses (Pratiksha Ashok, Tilburg University)
- Trust, disinformation, and verification: issues, approaches, challenges (Jochen Spangenberg, Deutsche Welle)
- Implementation challenges and opportunities under DSA (Fabio Giglietto, Università degli Studi di Urbino Carlo Bo)
Our expert speakers
Click on the photos to learn more about the speakers’ backgrounds.
Andrew McStay
Professor of Technology & Society, Bangor University
Andrew McStay is Professor of Technology & Society at Bangor University, specialising in the social and ethical dimensions of emerging technologies.
His research focuses on emotional AI, empathic systems, and digital governance. He advises regulators including the ICO and Ofcom, and chairs the IEEE P7014.1 Working Group, which is developing ethical guidance for AI systems that emulate empathy in human-AI relationships.
Andrew McStay
Bangor University
Arturas Grumulaitis
PhD student, Vilnius University, Faculty of Law
Arturas Grumulaitis is a third-year PhD student at Vilnius University, Faculty of Law.
The object of his research is the regulation of liability for damage caused by AI to fundamental rights, health, human life, and both material and intellectual property.
He earned his Master’s degree in Law from Vilnius University in 2022. His Master’s thesis received several distinctions: 1st place Best Master’s Thesis Award 2022 in the category EU Policy Formation and Implementation, established by Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and 3rd place in the Best Master’s Thesis Award 2022 in Corporate Law.
In both 2023 and 2024, Arturas Grumulaitis was honoured with the Kazimieras Motieka Foundation Scholarship for his excellent academic achievements and active participation in scientific activities during his first and second years of PhD studies. In 2025, he received a scholarship from the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.
During the autumn semester of 2024, Arturas Grumulaitis worked as a lecturer in AI, IP and Media law at the Faculty of Communication of Vilnius University. Last year, he spoke at international conferences in Lithuania, Ireland, France and the Netherlands.
His primary academic interests include the regulation of AI, tort law, and intellectual property law.
Arturas Grumulaitis
Vilnius University
Diane Leblanc-Albarel
Postdoctoral Researcher in Cryptography, KU Leuven
Diane Leblanc-Albarel is a postdoctoral researcher in cryptography at KU Leuven, within the COSIC group.
Her research focuses on perceptual hash functions, their analysis and implications in real-world deployments, as well as on time-memory trade-off attacks and the security of authentication protocols and password managers.
She earned her PhD in 2023 from INSA Rennes, where she worked on the analysis and optimization of time-memory trade-off attacks.
Diane Leblanc-Albarel
KU Leuven
Fabio Giglietto
Professor of Internet Studies, University of Urbino Carlo Bo
Fabio Giglietto is Professor of Internet Studies at University of Urbino Carlo Bo, researches disinformation dynamics, examining how false narratives spread across digital platforms and their societal impact.
His studies analyze computational methods for detecting coordinated manipulation campaigns.
As a professor his work provides critical insights into the mechanisms of media manipulation, offering evidence-based approaches to identify and counter harmful information operations.
Fabio Giglietto
University of Urbino Carlo Bo
Jochen Spangenberg
Deputy Head of Research and Cooperation Projects, Deutsche Welle
Jochen Spangenberg is a media and communication expert working as Deputy Head of Research and Cooperation Projects at international media organisation Deutsche Welle.
The topical focus of his work over the past decade has been on research dealing with social newsgathering, disinformation analysis and verification of digital content, and relating all this to the news sector and journalism.
Additionally, he also lectures at the Free University Berlin in Media & Communication Studies, is an active supporter of Lie Detectors, an NGO that brings media literacy into classrooms, and serves as vice-chair of the Advisory Council of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), Europe’s primary initiative against disinformation.
He is furthermore Advisory Board chair of CEDMO (Central European Digital Media Observatory) and Advisory Board member of GADMO (German-Austrian Digital Media Observatory).
Photo credit: DW, Kornelia Danetzki
Jochen Spangenberg
Deutsche Welle
Kim Krüger
PhD Candidate and Research Associate, Technical University of Munich
Kim Krüger is a PhD candidate and research associate at the Technical University of Munich, working on industry projects exploring digital technologies to enable the hydrogen economy.
Her broader research investigates how digital solutions, such as digital product passports, digital twins, and the metaverse, create value across varying levels of virtualization.
Kim Krüger
Technical University of Munich (TUM)
Neringa Gaubienė
Ph.D and Assistant Professor, Vilnius University
Dr. Neringa Gaubienė is an expert in artificial intelligence regulation and digital technology law, with extensive experience as a researcher, business consultant, and legal practitioner.
She teaches the courses "Law and Digital Technologies" and Civil Law at Vilnius University Faculty of Law, serves as the lead researcher in the research group "Digital Technologies, Cybersecurity, and Law."
Additionally, she is also affiliated with the Science Centers for Private Law, Civil Procedure, and Roman Law.
Dr. Gaubienė actively contributes to non-governmental and governmental organizations, including European Union institutions, and is a member of the EU AI Office expert group developing the Code of Practice for General Purpose AI.
She participates in various national and international scientific projects, writes academic articles, and is deeply engaged in student teaching and mentoring, fostering the development of future legal professionals.
Dr. Gaubienė regularly speaks at academic conferences in Lithuania and internationally, addressing pressing issues at the intersection of law and digital technologies.
Neringa Gaubienė
Vilnius University
Olivier Blazy
Senior Professor, École Polytechnique
Olivier Blazy is a senior professor at the École Polytechnique, since 2021. He completed his PhD in 2012, and has been in academia since.
His research interests include post-quantum cryptography, authenticated key exchange protocols, and the application of cryptography for privacy protection.
As of recent his work involves secure messaging systems, a post-quantum encryption standardized by NIST and collaborations on online age verification with the French data protection agency.
Olivier Blazy
École Polytechnique
Pratiksha Ashok
Post-Doctoral Researcher, Tilburg University
Pratiksha Ashok is a post-doctoral researcher in consumer protection and digital regulation in AI4POL, an EU Horizon 2020 project at Tilburg University that focuses on digital regulation and AI. She holds a PhD in consumer protection and data rights on collaborative economy platforms from UC Louvain, Belgium.
Furthermore, she was also a researcher for the PROSECO Project (Platform Regulations and Operations in the Sharing Economy). Ashok has a double degree in Business Administration and Law and a Masters in Corporate and Commercial Law from India.
Her second masters is a Master of Corporate Law, University of Cambridge, UK. The primary interest of her research include digital law, consumer law, AI and regulation comparative law, and global studies with perspectives from the Global South.
Pratiksha Ashok
Tilburg University
Simona Ramos
Assistant Professor, UPF Barcelona School of Management
Simona Ramos is a Tenure Track Assistant Professor at UPF- BSM. Her research focuses on the intersection of technical governance and EU policy.
She holds a PhD in Information and Computation Technology and Master’s degrees in Law and Economics. She is a recipient of the Marie S. Curie Doctoral Fellowship by the EU.
Simona Ramos
UPF Barcelona School of Management
