Acknowledgements

This handbook would not have been possible without the joint effort of many contributors. We would like to thank the authors, our colleagues, who have generously invested time and effort in the ‘Rethinking News and Media Law’ project and the various contributions to this edited volume. Without their particular expertise – from human rights law and media regulation to copyright law, competition law and economics – it would not have been possible to develop the research project and pave the way for this handbook, which provides important impulses for a more integrated approach.

We thank Microsoft for supporting the open-ended academic research that has led to this handbook. For the research project, IViR secured funding in the form of a donation from Microsoft. The donation agreement guarantees full academic independence in accordance with the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. The contributors to this project enjoyed complete intellectual independence from, and had no reporting obligations to, any third parties, including Microsoft. As an integral step to ensuring the scientific integrity of the project, Chapter 15 by Rucz and Irion in this handbook interrogates the stakes and interests of the donor in relation to the research project. The chapter arrives at the conclusion that the donation did not directly or indirectly advance the business model of the donor in ways that would be incompatible with scientific integrity.

We owe special thanks to Melinda Rucz who, next to preparing her own handbook contributions, coordinated the various meetings and activities in the research project and offered crucial assistance during the editing process to ensure that the manuscript could be delivered to the publisher.

Finally, we would like to thank Cambridge University Press, in particular Sharon McCann and Gemma Smith, for all support provided from the book proposal to the publication of the handbook.