How to develop and apply principles of (good) governance in digital societies?
Governing the Digital Society is one of Utrecht University’s focus areas that promotes research on the social processes of datafication, algorithmisation and platformisation. Our basic research inquiry revolves around the question: How to develop and apply principles of (good) governance in digital societies? Such principles often include tradeoffs between conflicting (public) values, such as privacy versus security, accuracy versus democratic control, fairness versus efficiency, etc.
Central to our research effort will be the strengthening of independent and public institutions in the digital era by making them more transparent, accountable, and responsible. We study these value-negotiations within and across societal sectors, trying to discover general rules for fair governance at various levels: institutional, local, national, and transnational (EU).