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Nouveau programme d’encouragement « Digitalization & Democracy«
Lancé en janvier 2025, date limite pour les short proposals 16 mars
Call for Project Proposals
A joint funding program endowed with 4 million CHF by the two foundations Hasler Stiftung and Stiftung Mercator Schweiz, open to not-for-profit institutions active in the domain of digital transformation and democracy (this includes Swiss Universities, Universities of Applied Science, non-commercial research institutes, institutions of the ETH Domain, civil society organizations, NGO’s and interested public entities).
Background
Digital transformation and democracy are deeply interconnected, particularly with the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI). This research program aims to integrate expertise from computer science, social sciences, and normative sciences such as law and ethics in the context of the current and future impact of digital transformation on democratic processes. Furthermore, it wants to promote collaboration between disciplines and other sectors, to maximize the impact of research output beyond academia. Specifically, the program wants to enable empirically grounded projects, which make use of the potential of digital transformation to improve the public good and the democratic system.
Key areas of focus include digital transformation of democratic public infrastructures, shifts in information and communication due to digital media, and the surge in democratic participation facilitated by digital formats.
Goals of the Program
The Hasler-Mercator Digitalization and Democracy program supports intersectoral research projects with societal impact in Switzerland and beyond addressing these and related challenges at the intersection of digitalization, particularly AI, and democracy. Proposals should include initiatives to enhance long-term impact, such as education, information dissemination, reception and deliberation, inclusion, diversity, policymaking, or real-life societal experiments, planned from the outset rather than as afterthoughts.
The aim of the program is to enable projects, that ideally already try to address the identified and researched challenges and implement possible solutions as a direct consequence of the research planned. They should evaluate their potential societal impact from the get go by defining impact goals ahead of the project. In doing so, they should be structured as an intersectoral collaboration between actors rooted in larger society as well as traditional academia.
The program specifically wants to promote the intersectoral collaboration between academia and civil society actors. Whilst advances in information and communication technology as well as in computer science should be at the center of all research projects, only projects between several actors aiming for impact beyond academia will be accepted.
Full program including details on eligibility criteria, funding rules, timelines, procedures and contact details :
Questions?
Please check our FAQ page, which will be updated as we go.
A virtual Q&A session has been held 13. February 2025. Slides can be downloaded here.