A Gravitation Programme Award grant of €21.3 million has been awarded to a consortium that includes Prof. Ting Li of Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) and Prof. Moniek Buijzen and associate professor Dr Esther Rozendaal of the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences (ESSB). This project, the Algorithmic Societies Project (ALGOSOC), investigates how the development of automated and semi-automated processes can safeguard public values and human rights.

Prof. Li, professor of digital business at RSM’s department of technology and operation management and Dr Rozendaal are co-applicants on this project and are working in the ALGOSOC consortium alongside Prof. Buijzen, the EUR lead. University of Amsterdam, the Dutch project lead, and EUR, Utrecht University, TUDelft and Tilburg University are the participants of this project.

What the project entails

This research project is centred around four central areas:

  • Ecology: How are patterns of institutional and individual decision-making power shifting in the algorithmic society?
  • Values: How do these changing patterns affect the way core values are conceptualised and articulated?
  • Effects: What are the effects of Algorithmic Decision Systems (ADS) on the realisation of public values for individuals and society?
  • Governance: How can responsibility for public values be organised, and decision-making power regulated, in the algorithmic society?

To clarify these questions, the consortium will dive into three sectors in society: justice, health and media. Furthermore, the group will pinpoint their findings and draw on cross-sectoral insights on (the challenges of) realising public values in the algorithmic society. A wide variety of methods from the social sciences, the humanities and computer science will be used in this project.

Set to be a decade-long research project, the ALGOSOC consortium will educate a new generation of PhDs and postdocs. It will also offer multiple tenure track positions and enable genuine interdisciplinary research. Says Prof. Ansgar Richter, dean of RSM, “This is wonderful news. This Gravitation Programme Award is a great example of a collaborative grant initiative with colleagues from different faculties and universities.”

More information

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) is one of Europe’s top-ranked business schools. RSM provides ground-breaking research and education furthering excellence in all aspects of management and is based in the international port city of Rotterdam – a vital nexus of business, logistics and trade. RSM’s primary focus is on developing business leaders with international careers who can become a force for positive change by carrying their innovative mindset into a sustainable future. Our first-class range of bachelor, master, MBA, PhD and executive programmes encourage them to become critical, creative, caring and collaborative thinkers and doers. www.rsm.nl

For more information about RSM or this release, please contact Erika Harriford-McLaren, communications manager for RSM, on +31 10 408 2877 or by email at harriford@rsm.nl.

Type
Corporate Communication Centre , Companies , Executive education , Faculty & Research , Homepage , International , Newsroom , Sustainability , Technology and operations management , China , Positive change , EC for data analytics