For the coming three years, CDH programme team member Mirko Schäfer has been appointed Visiting Professor at the Helsinki Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities (HSSH).
Developing the Utrecht Data School at Utrecht University, Mirko Schäfer has built a track-record of societally engaged research for inquiring datafication and algorithmization at government organisation in the Netherlands. Schäfer’s research approach resonates well with research initiatives at HSSH and their societal stakeholders. The three-year visiting professorship provides the opportunity to identify common ground between the different case studies from Finland and the Netherlands in order to develop general findings and conclusions for a much-needed conceptualisation of the digital society. Public values, democratic institutions, the role of the welfare state, and technology regulation are relevant aspects to consider for situating datafication within a European perspective.
“Mirko’s nuanced, hands-on approach to the dilemmas and opportunities of datafication and algorithmisation in diverse institutional contexts is path-breaking and inspiring. We look forward to the cooperation and are sure will learn many useful lessons”
Risto Kunelius (director of the Helsinki Institute of Social sciences and Humanities)
Schäfer is co-founder and Faculty of Science Lead of the Utrecht Data School and Associate Professor at Utrecht University’s research area Governing the Digital Society and the Department for Information & Computing Sciences.