Project Liberty's Institute Awards $1 Million in Grants to Research on Governance of Digital Technologies at SciencesPo

Funding supports research on digital governance, future of governance of technology & social media; and decentralised networks.

SciencesPo and Project Liberty’s Institute (formerly the McCourt Institute) are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2023 research grants, totaling nearly $1 million in funding. Grantees will focus on the following issues: governance of the metaverse; misinformation & social media; digital identity; safety of Artificial Intelligence; etc. The grants program supports research working on responsible innovation, ethics, and challenges of new technologies.

The 2023 SciencesPo & Project Liberty’s Institute grantees include:

• Teaching Online News: Access to Digital Media, News Consumption and Political Knowledge – Evidence from a Randomised Experiment
  Julia Cagé, Associate Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Sciences Po
• Styles of Moderation: Meeting Users' Diverse Expectations and Practices for a More Decentralised Governance of Online Speech
  Sylvain Parasie, Professor of Sociology and Director of médialab, Sciences Po; Donato Ricci, Research Designer at médialab, Sciences Po; Dominique Cardon, Professor of Sociology, médialab, Sciences Po.
• How does ID verification on social media influence political and social behaviour?
  Romain Lachat, Associate Professor at CEVIPOF, Sciences Po.
• From Viral to Verified: A Cross-Country Study on Misinformation Sharing and Flagging to Improve Policy Making
  Achim Edelmann, Assistant Professor in Computational Social Science, médialab, Sciences Po.
• Analysing Dynamics of Metaverse communities for the understanding of determinants of metaverse adoption
  Kevin Mellet, Assistant Professor, CSO, CNRS/SciencesPo; Christine Balagué, Professor, Institut Mines Telecom-Business School, Chair Good in Tech, Member of Dataia, Member of CSA expert group on misinformation
• Promoting a Safe Use of Artificial Intelligence by Fighting Against Cognitive Heuristics-Driven Misperceptions
  Lou Safra, Assistant Professor in Political Psychology at CEVIPOF, Sciences Po
• Interventions to Reduce Misinformation and Deep Fakes: Cross-Country Experimental Evidence
  Nicolas Sauger, Professor of Political Sciences, Director of CDSP, Sciences Po.

An International Mission To Build an Internet That Serves Citizens

In 2022, the McCourt Institute supported 8 research projects at SciencesPo in the first round of grants. To learn more about ongoing projects, click here.

The research projects supported by Project Liberty’s Institute in 2023 will further advance our understanding of governance of digital technologies and their social and political impact.”, noted Sergei Guriev, Provost and Professor of Economics at SciencesPo. “Fully in line with the vision of our partnership with Project Liberty’s Institute, these projects will also provide policy implications for assuring that the new technology reinforces rather than undermines our democracies”.

“Our collaboration with Sciences Po is very important to achieve Project Liberty’s mission. Accelerating action-oriented research to address emerging digital governance issues is both critical and timely” noted Constance de Leusse, Executive Director of Project Liberty’s Institute.

Through research conducted by Sciences Po’s researchers as well as other partner universities (Georgetown University and Stanford University) Project Liberty’s Institute aims to identify solutions for building a civic and equitable technological infrastructure for all, along with new governance models. “Can we ensure privacy in our lives online? Should our online relationships and personal information be owned by corporations or by each of us? Can we replace surveillance capitalism with a new digital shared economic model?” These are the questions that Project Liberty’s Institute and Sciences Po intend to answer. The focus is on developing a new digital architecture, designed and built for the common good, which optimises access and equity for all.

About Project Liberty

Project Liberty is an international nonprofit accelerating the world's transition to an open, inclusive data economy that empowers people over platforms by working to mobilise the foundation of a new internet for the common good. Project Liberty and its Institute are building a global alliance for responsible technology and bringing together technologists, academics, policymakers, civil society and citizens to build a safer, healthier tech ecosystem.

About Sciences Po

Sciences Po is an international research university, both selective and open to the world, ranking among the finest institutions in the fields of humanities and social sciences.

Sciences Po's overarching mission is to educate future leaders in the public and private sectors. Curious and open-minded, Sciences Po graduates, regardless of their focus and trajectory, all share the ability to “learn how to learn”, which is one of the priorities of our education. However, our ambition extends even further: to educate open-minded and enlightened citizens capable of changing the world and transforming society.