The lecture will describe the origins, uses, and current research in the Governing Knowledge Commons community, sometimes known as GKC. Research on knowledge commons originated in the early 2000s with references to knowledge, data, and information by Elinor Ostrom, who received the Nobel Prize in economics for her work on natural resource commons and economic theory.
In 2010, the leaders of the Governing Knowledge Commons collective published a research framework specifically directed to knowledge sharing or commons governance institutions, as a novel re-thinking of Ostrom’s instincts, now adapted to intangible resources. Since then, the GKC research community has expanded considerably, via publishing multiple books of knowledge commons case studies in print; collaborating with the International Association for the Study of Commons (IASC); exploring intersections with other commons research communities, including data, medicine, and agriculture; and helping students and researchers around the world to learn about the GKC research framework and how they might use it, extend it, and improve it on their own. GKC is a knowledge commons for knowledge commons, a community about community. This lecture will illustrate both the history and the prospects for the future of knowledge commons research with abundant examples from published work and work in progress.
Bio
Professor Michael Madison is Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a Senior Scholar with the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security (Pitt Cyber). At Pitt Law, he is Faculty Director of the Future Law Project and a John E. Murray Faculty Scholar.
As a researcher and teacher, Professor Madison focuses on institutions for producing, storing, and distributing knowledge. The scope of his writing includes information, data, creativity, innovation, and art; it ranges from the development of research universities to patent history, from the law of fair use and production of conceptual art to legal rules governing data, network security, and computer software. He is the author of more than 50 journal articles and book chapters, the co-author of The Law of Intellectual Property (Wolters Kluwer, 5th edition 2017), and the co-editor of Governing Knowledge Commons (Oxford University Press, 2014) and Governing Medical Knowledge Commons (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Professor Madison is the co-founder of the global research network titled the Workshop on Governing Knowledge Commons and the global law reform platform titled Future Law Works.
At the end of the lecture, participants are welcome to ask questions and take part in the discussion on the lecture themes.
You may register for the event by clicking above. The Zoom link will be provided after registration.