Research descriptions FASoS sector plans

"I am an interdisciplinary environmental social scientist interested in the intersection of technology and sustainability, especially in the context of global supply chain governance. Most recently, this has involved research on metal and mineral supply chains, with a focus on traceability and digitization, building on my previous work studying sustainability standards as a technology of governance in global agricultural supply chains, ESG integration in investment practices, and the way corporate sustainability managers think about their impacts."

“My research bridges the fields of (comparative) political economy and political behaviour. Specifically, I am interested in better understanding the consequences of rising economic and social inequalities for the way in which our democracies work. To this end, I explore why citizens in unequal democracies seem to be disengaging from traditional forms of political participation. 

Why do citizens grow more distant from established political parties or become more likely to abstain in elections? Do citizens become more susceptible to populist narratives and disinformation when they live in (increasingly) unequal societies? Is democracy as we know it able to resist the pressure of increasingly unequal and polarized societies? 

Employing quantitative methods alongside experimental research designs, I investigate these critical questions. Through this work, I aim to contribute to building more resilient democracies capable of withstanding the challenges posed by contemporary inequalities and polarization.”

"My research contributes to the Horizon Europe project "ENSURED", which focuses on how the European Union (EU) and its member states can transform global governance. Within ENSURED, I am involved in a Work Package on “health and pandemics”, dealing with the interplay between Intellectual Property and vaccine access, the current negotiations on a World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic agreement, and the reform of the WHO’s governance and financial framework. 

These studies pay special attention to health equity, as well as key variables like robustness, effectiveness and democracy. My broader research sits primarily at the intersection between EU external action and global (health) governance, exploring issues such as whether and how the EU has fostered and benefitted from increased governance diversity. I also have extensive research experience in other policy fields, such as security and defence."

“My research focuses on developing human-centric artificial intelligence (AI) systems that prioritize ethical, social, and human values in their design and implementation. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, I examine how AI technologies are legitimized by enduring narratives about the relationship between humans and machines. Drawing on frameworks from pragmatist philosophy, critical theory, and historical reconstruction, I explore how AI systems influence individuals and communities.

A significant aspect of my work involves investigating how democracy and democratic processes can align AI with human values and principles. Specifically, I analyse whether current understandings of democratic practices are adequate or how they might be innovated to address the challenges posed by the disruptive emergence of AI-based systems.

Ultimately, my goal is to contribute to the development of policies and practices that guide the design of AI systems capable of addressing major societal challenges effectively and ethically.”

"Can AI have empathy? Do care robots genuinely care? Utilizing my background in the philosophy of cognitive science, I investigate emotion recognition software and its racial and gender biases while also exploring emotional AI applications for autism, grief bots, and therapy bots. 

I answer questions such as: Should AI systems have emotions, and if so, how do we regulate this "affective AI"? When it comes to emotion recognition software, how should we address its biases and potential for misuse? Is the application of affective computing for autistic individuals ableist? Do grief bots risk exacerbating or disrupting emotional healing? And when it comes to therapy bots, can they – or should they – empathize in a meaningful way?

My goal is to contribute to shaping AI regulations that address these nuanced issues. To that end, I collaborate with Daniel Leufer, a senior policy analyst at Access Now, an NGO dedicated to safeguarding human rights in the context of the digital. Together, we work to influence the development of EU AI regulations, such as the EU AI Act, where I provide policy recommendations."

"Understanding migrant communities and their well-being is not simply about understanding them in the country they migrated to, but also how they relate to their country of origin. Often migrants keep strong links to their origin country, especially when family members still reside there. My research centres around transnational migration, exploring how migration shapes relationships, caregiving practices, and well-being within families spread across borders. 

In particular, I look at families that live geographically separated, where e.g. an underaged child lives in the country of origin and their parent has migrated, or an older migrant whose children have migrated. What does this separation do to these family members? How does this affect intergenerational relations and well-being? I consider the reasons for family separation, who has migrated and who remains, and the position these people have in their household and society."

"In my research, I try to understand how global governance can be more effective at solving global problems – specifically global inequality and health inequality. I use statistical analyses to study the perceptions and behaviour of individuals working in international organizations – like the World Bank or the World Health Organization. 

My research has shown that the underrepresentation of people from low- and middle-income countries and inequalities in the funding of international organizations often undermine the effectiveness of development programmes and health interventions." 

"I am interested in language, border regions, and case studies that discuss a ‘marginalised’ or ‘bottom-up’ perspective on political issues such as European integration, labour migration, and automation. Empirically, I often focus on cases from the Dutch province of Limburg, but always within an international, European, and/or border-regional framework.

My PhD dissertation was an ethnography of a large metal foundry in Limburg, where linguistic diversity among employees had changed significantly in a short period of time. 

For the Interreg project EMRLingua, I conducted research on existing needs and obstacles for secondary schools regarding the teaching of so-called ‘neighbour languages’ (Dutch, French, German).

As part of the sector plans, I would like to explore the approach of action research. While ethnography is about observing an existing situation, action research is about intervening in an existing situation and observing what happens. In this respect, I am considering sociolinguistic interventions in areas such as journalism, education, and ‘blue-collar’ work."

“My work explores historical and contemporary perspectives on automation, computation, and visualization within the medical sciences, behavioural sciences, and brain and mind sciences. Drawing on the history of science, technology, and medicine, I also critically examine contemporary expectations of artificial intelligence, such as its applications in automated decision-making and image recognition in the medical field. 

Currently, my research focuses on the development of image-based medicine and the efforts to automate image interpretation in fields like radiology and pathology, starting in the 1950s. This work is part of the NWO-funded RAIDIO research project. Additionally, I am affiliated with the EU-funded STRONG AYA consortium, where I study data work and data ethics in health research.”

As part of the Sector Plan “Human Factor in New Technology”, my research looks at sustainability transitions and transformations. While technological change is often considered to occur automatically with new innovations, history reminds us that it always depends on human factors. Sustainable technologies can only break through after a complex process in which a range of human actors – innovators, politicians, stakeholders in the established technology, but also civil society – shape the outcome. 

Seeking interdisciplinary connections in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Sustainability Transition Research (STR), my research focuses on the oil industry investing in nuclear, solar and geothermal energy in the 1970s, and the “desulfurization” of European energy systems in the 1970s-1980s, when new technologies to remove sulfur from fuels and emissions were implemented following the scientific and societal problematization of Acid Rain due to sulfur emissions.

"I teach and study cultural heritage and performance art. More specifically, I explores how art, science, and technology come together in preserving artistic traditions. My research focuses on how performance-based artworks evolve over time, how communities and audiences help keep them alive, and how craftsmanship shapes the arts and its education.

For example, I have studied how classical music plays a key role in shaping artistic tradition and heritage. In my work, I challenge the idea that artistic heritage is fixed, showing instead how tradition and innovation constantly interact to shape communities and their respective identities. I also look into how technologies are involved in this process. I have a background in science and technology studies, contemporary art conservation, and museum and heritage studies."

“It is almost impossible to avoid the hype surrounding AI, self-driving cars, cryptocurrency, or virtual reality. Now you might think that these technologies are going to make life easier for us all, making us happier and healthier in the process, or, that their benefits are sensationalized, that their risks are largely unknown, and that those involved in their development are unethical, immoral, and solely interested in turning a profit. In my research, I am not so much interested in whether technology is considered a hero or a villain, instead I am interested in discussions surrounding what it means to develop technologies responsibly and how technological change may trigger us to reevaluate what responsibility itself actually means.

When it comes to putting this into practice, I chair and coordinate the research platform, Critical Technology Studies, within which we explore the ethics and politics of emerging technologies. In addition to working with my colleagues at FASoS, I also work with people who have more technical backgrounds, such as our colleagues working on AI and robotics at the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE). Taking an interdisciplinary approach, designing projects together from the bottom-up allows us to rethink how we define the problems that we want to solve, who we include in the project design, as well as how we can prioritize systems that embed human factors – that is to say, the social and ethical considerations – throughout the research and innovation process.

 I also work as a research associate at the Brightlands Institute for Smart Societies (BISS) in Heerlen, where my role is similarly to work across public-private partnerships in order to embed ethical reflection throughout R&I, providing tools and strategies for promoting responsible development in data science.”

“My research is situated in the Humane AI sector plan. I aim to study contemporary science and technology from two perspectives. First, I study science and technology from an 'ecological' perspective, emphasizing how any technological artifact is always embedded in a material and social environment in order to function. Second, I draw on ideas from the history of the philosophy of science and technology, attempting to recover valuable but forgotten perspectives from the history of the humanities for the study of contemporary science and technology.”

“I position my research within the fields of international development and migration studies. I collaborate with international and interdisciplinary scholars that share a common interest in topics related to movement, (im)mobilities, and climate and social justice, to understand people’s navigation of power and discourse. 

My research covers two areas of interest. Firstly, informed by my PhD research on refugee reception in Indonesia, I am currently exploring the transformation of humanitarian approaches to managing refugees into projects that mimic longer-term development mechanisms. Dominant among solutions that target refugees is the promotion of entrepreneurial initiatives to encourage refugees’ self-reliance and sustainable livelihoods, despite state regulations that prohibit it. Secondly, I am interested in how climate change adaptation strategies are influenced by, but can also further augment, social inequalities. I am currently involved in two research projects, one situated in Rotterdam and the other in Jakarta, that looks into questions around climate change responses and communities’ resilience and vulnerabilities through an intersectional lens.”

"I am a political economist and in my research I try to understand how societies adapt to new technologies and more specifically how politics and institutions shape that process. I am particularly fascinated by automating technologies, such as robots and AI, because they impose a difficult trade-off for societies. 

On the one hand, these tools offer us the possibility to become more efficient and to do away with difficult, dangerous and strenuous jobs. On the other hand, that process of automation often implies a loss of identity for workers, job loss and other potential harms. My work analyses the direct and indirect rules politics comes up with to deal with that trade-off, how those rules influence new innovations, how they shape the winners and losers of automation and what happens to those citizens who lose their work to new technologies."

“Debates on disinformation generally focus on distinguishing fact from falsehood. However, democracy depends not only on the accuracy of information, but also on its timing in the political process – and this timing in turn influences the accuracy of information. Information may be truthful, yet reach citizens and their democratic representatives too early or too late. My research thus looks at the role of time in media and politics. 

As a historian, I investigate how different democracies have managed the relationship between time and information in the past, and what we can learn from these earlier experiences. Once we understand better this role of time in democracy, we can adjust our political processes and reform democratic education so that citizens will learn how to access and communicate political information at the right moments in time. Perhaps our democracies suffer not so much from misinformation - but from mistimed information.”