TUM researcher receives award for interdisciplinary legal research
"Legal regulation as a factor in shaping the digital transformation"
How will ChatGPT and other AI applications change academic life for students? How can future exam regulations be formulated so that they do not put a brake on innovations? These are the topics of interest for Dr. Sarah Rachut. She conducts research into the legal challenges posed by advances in digitization. “It’s not enough just to ban a technology like ChatGPT,” she explains. “Because such a ban cannot be verified, and is therefore unenforceable, it makes more sense to accept these new conditions and think about how to create a legally secure framework.”
Sarah Rachut and Dirk Heckmann, Professor for Law and Security in Digital Transformation at TUM, demonstrated during the pandemic how regulations can be used as a factor in shaping the digital transformation. Within a short time a framework was needed that would enable students not only to attend lectures online but also to write exams at home. Sarah Rachut and Dirk Heckmann worked together to draw up the regulations. Their draft of the Bavarian Remote Examination Regulation served as the model for new remote exam regulations for the Bavarian state and at the national level.
Legal sciences as an interdisciplinary field
In her research Sarah Rachut relies on interdisciplinary contacts and sees legal sciences as an important contributing factor in the digital transformation in public administration and in education and healthcare. In 2020 she co-founded the TUM Center for Digital Public Services. As the managing director of this new research institute, she stresses the importance of communication across the various university schools and departments. “You need to arrive at a shared understanding and find a common language. This works particularly well at TUM because of the focus here on making things possible. For example, the data protection standards will not necessary impede innovations if they are appropriately formulated, with conflicting rights taken into consideration,” says Sarah Rachut.
Law and digitization to promote the common good
Sarah Rachut is also active away from the academic setting. For example, she was involved in setting up the social startup First Legal Aid for Ukrainian refugees. “Our goal was to provide legal aid quickly and without complications. We provided access to relevant regulations on an ongoing basis, translated them into various languages and created a matching platform to bring together individuals in search of legal support with legal professionals,” explains the constitutional lawyer.
In 2024 Sarah Rachut was honored by the Handelsblatt business daily with the Young Leader in GovTech Award. In the same year, for her dissertation “Realisation of Fundamental Rights in Digital Contexts”, she received the Bernd Hentschel Scientific Award, granted by the Society for Data Protection and Security. This was the first doctoral thesis in law to be completed at TUM.
“A special motivation of my research is the desire to promote the common good,” says Sarah Rachut. “Digitization has the potential to improve the living conditions of a great many people. Amid various conflicting interests, the law should ensure that a fair and just balance is found. In my research, I want to make a difference in that regard.”
Technical University of Munich
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Contacts to this article:
Dr. Sarah Rachut
Technical University of Munich (TUM)
Chair of Law and Security in Digital Transformation
sarah.rachut@tum.de
www.tum.de
