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How will citizen-state relations unfold in the age of data?

After a decade working in commercial and research roles within the digital economy industry, Georgia Meyer decided to return to academia.

“Change is happening at such a rapid a pace that the role of research and academia in crafting new frameworks for sensemaking is all the more vital,” she explains. “This is especially true as we see the increasing precariousness of much of society’s traditional institutions and narratives.”

Georgia had become increasingly inspired by the work of Information Systems scholars at LSE – most notably Professor Chrisanthi Avgerou, Professor Susan Scott and Dr Edgar Whitley. Applying for a PhD at LSE was the next logical step, but the financial burden of a four year PhD programme posed a real challenge.

"Returning to education was not an option for me until relatively recently and a PhD is not a practical option without being able to ease the financial pressure with a scholarship," she says. “I am incredibly grateful to those who have funded such places and hope that my work will honour their generosity.”

Georgia researches data valuation frameworks, Privacy Enhancing Technologies, post-Brexit data governance and the unfolding political economy of personal data. She is currently investigating how classification systems are constructed around technologically enabled 'anonymised' personal data sets, and how these classifications are used to unlock, or stifle, political, social, and economic value.

Over the past decade I have witnessed the radical changes that our ascent into the Information Age is precipitating across businesses and the society, so the opportunity to step back and consider such changes from lenses beyond simply the commercial is something I value immensely.

Georgia Meyer, Information Systems & Innovation MPhil/PhD student in LSE’s Department of Management