The development of digital technology in Social Sciences and Humanities creates a lot of opportunities, but might also create risks and threats. Significant societal issues can be raised in regard to digitalisation. Social and digital changes influence each other, therefore, the NWO domain of Social Sciences and Humanities launched 3 calls on digitalisation.
Upcoming call ‘NWO Open Competition on Digitalisation – SSH’
The upcoming call for proposals ‘NWO Open Competition on Digitalisation – SSH’ (Dutch: ‘NWO Open Competitie voor Digitalisering – SGW’) fulfils the domain plan Social Sciences & Humanities (previously the Sectorplan SSH) of the ministry of OCW (Education, Culture, Science). This domain plan raises questions on the societal issues that accompany the rise of big data, artificial intelligence, and social media. More information on the call can be found on the page of NWO Open Competitie – SGW
Call ‘Innovating responsibly. Designing public values in a digital world’
One of the biggest challenges in digital societies is finding the right (technological and institutional) solutions to conflicts of fundamental values, which is the main focus of this researchprogram. The goal is to generate innovative scientific knowledge and insights to strengthen and determine policy. The new researchprogram is part of the ‘Responsible Innovation’ program (Maatschappelijk verantwoord innoveren[NWO-MVI]). MVI-research maps ethical and societal aspects of innovation and technology and focuses on creating solutions to societal issues. Check the NWO Funding-page for this call.
Call ‘Digital Society – The informed citizen’
This call supports the Digital Society Research Agenda of the VSNU (association of universities The Netherlands). Current research focuses on the need to ensure that everybody in society is and continues to remain involved in the digitalisation and we need to be aware of the cultural and societal context, precisely because digitalisation knows no boundaries. Developing new knowledge in the areas of ICT and data interpretation will require (cultural) contextualisation and visualisation, and cross-disciplinary collaboration between researchers from different domains for societal impact to be realised. Check out the NWO Funding-page for this call.
