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Aim
Our aim is to establish and to cultivate fruitful collaborations between the Weizenbaum Institute and researchers around the globe, thus helping to position it as a leading research institution world-wide. For our visiting scholars, the Weizenbaum Institute offers an inspiring multi-disciplinary research environment with access to other leading research institutions.
Submission of Applications
Researchers are asked to submit their applications addressed to the specific research group with which they would like to be associated. A list of research groups currently offering fellowships is provided in section V below.
Applications for fellowships may be submitted over the course of the whole year.
Please indicate in your application the months in 2018, 2019, or 2020, which you would like to spend at the Weizenbaum Institute. Applications must include a curriculum vitae, a publications list, a two-page project description, information about previous work, and your planned working program for the duration of your research stay. Projects resulting in publications are highly encouraged.
Selection criteria
The researcher’s visit and proposed work should be related to one of the specific areas of focus of the Weizenbaum Institute’s research groups; the period of residence is intended to facilitate and prepare interdisciplinary collaboration, and to result in publication. Applications should define target outcomes clearly (e.g., publications, grant proposals, etc.). The applicant’s curriculum vitae and the fit of the proposed project to the overall research program and aims of the Weizenbaum Institute will be crucial for consideration.
Financial support
The Weizenbaum Institute offers appropriate financial support to visiting fellows. This includes a fellowship provided by one of the seven founding institutions of the Weizenbaum Institute (details are provided below).
The Weizenbaum Institute offers the following fellowship positions (sorted alphabetically by fellowship-providing institution):
Berlin Social Science Center (WZB)
We are accepting applications for fellowships in the following research groups:
“Working in highly automated processes” (please send your application to Dr. Florian Butollo, florian.butollo@wzb.eu)
“Democracy and Digitalization” (please send your application to Dr. Thorsten Thiel, thorsten.thiel@wzb.eu)
Democratic societies acquire, implement, and adapt to new technologies; they are in turn shaped and transformed by digitalization. This group examines structural changes in the democratic public sphere, analyses new forms of democratic participation , and studies the scope of human rights in a digital society.
“Quantification and social regulation” (please send your application to Dr. Lena Ulbricht, lena.ulbricht@wzb.eu)
This research group investigates the role of automated information and decision systems (based on technologies such as big data or artificial intelligence) in politics and organizations. Our focus lies on the ways in which these systems impact the resources, logics and procedures applied in the regulation of individual and collective behaviour.
The WZB will make individual decisions about the form of the fellowship contract with these two options: a) the fellow remains a regular employee of their home institution, and WZB will reimburse the costs to the home institution; b) the fellow will receive a WZB employment contract for the project conducted during his/her stay.
Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (Fraunhofer FOKUS)
Applications for fellowships beginning November 2018 are open in the following research groups:
“Digitalization and Public Safety” (please send your application to Richard Huber richard.huber@fokus.fraunhofer.de)
“Digitalization and Science” (please send your application to Dr. Jens Klessmann jens.klessmann@fokus.fraunhofer.de)
Fraunhofer FOKUS is seeking researchers with expertise in relevant technologies or relevant, related topics in the social sciences or psychology. Beginning late in 2018 affords us the opportunity to embed a fellow from four to six weeks in 2018 and the same duration early in 2019. The goal of the fellowships is to pursue intense research collaboration aiming at joint publications in high-profile venues.
For more information on the individual projects and details concerning the conditions for the fellowship, please contact the person to whom you will submit your application, corresponding to the research group in which you are interested.
Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin)
The FU fellow receives a scholarship for the stay at the Weizenbaum Institute. We are accepting applications from junior and senior researchers for the following research groups:
“Digital Citizenship” (please send your application to Dr. Pablo Porten-Cheé, p.porten-chee@fu-berlin.de)
Many forms of political action beyond voting are spreading in the online world. Nevertheless we know very little about whether or how openness for alternative forms of political engagement may change what people expect from democracy and how they assess it. As a member of our research team, you will join us in studying emerging citizen norms under conditions of digitization and how these norms affect individual political participation and expression of opinion under turbulent conditions (e.g., hate speech, incivility).
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU Berlin)
The HU Berlin offers fellowship contracts in form of scholarships. We are accepting applications for the following research groups:
“Data as a means of payment”
This research group focuses on the conditions under which a market model could be applied appropriately in cases where personal data is exchanged in lieu of more conventional forms of payment. One of our central questions, in this context, is how tradition al rules of contract law should be applied, and perhaps adjusted, in order to preserve the desired operation of the law and the functioning of digital markets.
“Shifts in norm setting”
“Trust in distributed environments”
The two above research groups — “Shifts in norm setting” and “Trust in distributed environments” — investigate significant changes in governance mechanisms in the context of the Internet and digitalization. As focus shifts from national parliaments to international agreements, multilateral conventions, and also technical configurations, standards like “privacy by design” in the field of data protection as well as in other regulatory contexts are expected to become increasingly important. Smart contracts and fully decentralized consensus mechanisms — for instance, based on blockchains — open up a new field of automation and a novel basis for financial mechanisms and legal agreements.
Dr. Zohar Efroni, zohar.efroni@rewi.hu-berlin.de, will receive applications for all three of the HU Berlin’s research groups.
Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin)
We are accepting applications from junior and senior researchers for the following research groups:
“Responsibility and the Internet of things” (please send your application to Dr. Stefan Ullrich, stefan.ullrich@tu-berlin.de)
The Internet of things (IoT) is both a lucrative market and a security nightmare. This project seeks to identify and map IoT devices, as well as policies and best practices used in developing such highly interconnected and ubiquitous IT systems. Ideally, as a member of our team, your focus will be on designing case scenarios of interdisciplinary use and on consequent policymaking regulations for various IoT apparatuses and tools.
“Criticality of software-based systems” (please send your application to Dr. Diana Serbanescu, diana-alina.serbanescu@tu-berlin.de)
As society’s reliance on autonomous, intelligent, and critical software systems increases, new strategies must be found to ensure not only that traditional quality engineering aspects such as safety, efficiency, reliability and securityare preserved, but also that the ethics of human-machine interactions and the sociopolitical implications they trigger are appropriately addressed. With this scope in mind, as a member of our research team, you will join us in scrutinizing critical software systems of the future and investigating their ethical dimensions and the new challenges they pose.
The fellowship includes the use of Weizenbaum Institute facilities and a grant to compensate for expenses incurred regarding travel and accommodation. The duration of a fellowship may vary from one to three months; it is possible to split a fellowship into several visits.
University of Potsdam (UP)
We are accepting fellowship applications from junior (post-doc level) and senior researchers (e.g. assistant, associate, full, emeritus professors) for the following research groups:
“Digital technologies and well-being” (please send your application to Annika Baumann, annibaumann@uni-potsdam.de)
Social media, smartphone applications, wearables and other emerging technologies are transforming the society we live in today. These technologies change the way we develop relationships, communicate with one another, work, and spend our leisure time. Because such platforms increasingly permeate our daily routines, stakeholders have begun to raise issues about the meaning and long-term consequences of the changes they are bringing about. Proponents express strong optimism, linking the use of these technologies to significant benefits individually and socially; opponents raise the specter of increased risk and negative consequences like information overload, addiction, growing envy, decreased attention span, and loss of privacy. In light of this controversy, as a member of our research team, you will join us in exploring the impact of these digital technologies, especially social media, on individual well-being in a broader sense.
“Digital integration” (please send your application to Prof. Dr. Hanna Krasnova, krasnova@uni-potsdam.de)
Social inclusion, a central component of any democratic society, has emerged as a particularly critical issue in the face of recent ongoing refugee crises. A sudden wave of migration has raised a number of challenges including operational ones such as expedient and unbureaucratic registration, provision of medical support, transportation and housing; as well as more strategic challenges such as equal access to education, employment, and housing, to name just three. Given the IT-savviness of so many of the refugees at present, social media and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) could become powerful tools in supporting integration processes. Up to now, however, the role of digital technology in supporting social inclusion is a research question that has hardly been investigated. As a member of our research team, you will join us in exploring the possibilities and potentials, as we seek to gain further insights into the role of ICT in social integration processes.
“Education and training in the digital society” (please send your application to Dr. Gergana Vladova, gergana.vladova@wi.uni-potsdam.de)
Digital technologies increasingly place new demands on education, vocation, and the required competences of employees worldwide. At the same time, the long-term implications of these developments remain unclear. In light of the ongoing transformations, there is a growing need to consider what kinds of knowledge, education, and competence will be crucial for members of the workforce in the new digital age, and how this vital information can be effectively communicated. Indeed, how can schools integrate digital education in to the classroom effectively? How do we design digital-competence training? What approaches can be taken to counteract the devaluation of occupational skills of some employee groups in order to ensure their long-term workforce integration? As a member of our research team, you will join us in exploring these and other challenges at the intersection of education and digital technologies.
For more information regarding the conditions of the research fellowship, please contact the person to whom you will submit your application (corresponding to the research group in which you are interested). The duration of a fellowship may vary from one to three months; it is also possible to split a fellowship into several visits.
