Artificial intelligence (AI) holds the potential to assist or even replace civil servants in citizen-state interactions, which refer to those instances in which citizens seek or receive assistance, information, or support from a public agency. In Germany alone, around 130 to 150 million such public service encounters (PSE) occur each year, with the current proportion of digital encounters, facilitated through email or chatbots, standing at 41 percent. This is only the beginning of a revolution that will accelerate due to technological innovation and scarcity in human resources. The goal of this project is to study the consequences of shifting from human to AI-powered conversational agents in PSE. Paradoxically, while the transition to artificial encounters is already taking place in practice, we still lack understanding of what happens during conventional human encounters. This prevents researchers from evaluating the consequences of shifting from one venue to the other. Therefore, the project’s main research questions are: How can we conceptualize and measure communicative biases in PSE? What biases emerge in the verbal communication of humans and AI agents in PSE? How does variation in communication affect citizen perceptions of the encounter? AI has the potential to improve service delivery, but there are also risks for the legitimacy of democracy. Without further research, the introduction of AI threatens to merely shift biases from one venue (civil servants) to another (AI agent). As its ground-breaking contributions, the project (1) develops natural language processing tools to operationalize verbal communication; (2) collects data from human encounters in PSE and realizes experiments on AI-based encounters; (3) and analyses such data to formulate and test a theory about communicative biases in PSE. Doing so, (4) the project will produce and disseminate urgently needed practical insights on the application of AI conversational agents in the public sector.

Democracies are constantly confronted with the challenging task of merging widely diverging worldviews, interests and values into coherent legislation. Given the increasingly hostile political climate around the world, solving this task has never been more difficult and more important than today. Yet, despite the crucial relevance of laws for our daily lives and the legitimacy and effectiveness of democratic government, our understanding of how the design, creation and long-term survival of legislation are related is still very limited. The DEMOLAW project analyses legislative texts in three different political systems (US, UK, EU) with cutting-edge computational methods to answer three major research questions: (1) Which conceptual dimensions capture the design of a law and how can we exploit textual properties of law texts to measure these dimensions empirically? (2) Why does the design of democratic legislation vary across laws, policy domains and political systems? (3) How can we explain why some laws are entirely stable over time, while others are constantly adjusted and sometimes transformed fundamentally? The project makes three major contributions. First, it provides an entirely novel conceptual perspective on the design of democratic laws by focusing on two analytical dimensions that are central to any piece of legislation: versatility and precision. This innovative approach allows us, for the first time, to measure and compare the substance of legislative output across and within policy domains, political systems and over time. Second, the project will develop and test an integrated theoretical framework on both the creation and the survival of democratic legislation and thereby advance the theoretical state-of-the-art in comparative public policy. Finally, the project’s ground-breaking methodological approach will pave the way for a computational analysis of legislative content and will thereby push the boundaries of how we study democratic decision-mak

FEINART is an extensive collaboration between degree-awarding research-centres in political philosophy, art theory/practice and curatorial studies/cultural management, and the independent European art sector, as the basis for the first interdisciplinary and holistic investigation of the democratic role and function of socially engaged art in Europe. In this it will train 11 Early-Stage Researchers in order to provide the relevant academic and non-academic skills to engage with the challenges of this new artistic and cultural landscape. The 11 ESRs will be spread across four academic Beneficiaries (University of Wolverhampton University of Iceland, University of Edinburgh, Zeppelin University, Germany) and 7 Partner Organizations (Tensta Konstall, Sweden; BAK, Netherlands; State of Concept, Greece; W-Est, Italy; Tranzit.ro, Romania; Teatr Scena Prezentacje (Biennale Warsawa), Poland; and Icelandic Academy of the Arts, Iceland). The selected POs represent an exemplary cross section of small-scale and larger independent spaces - projects spaces, cultural centres, art labs/research hubs - working under different demands and expectations, yet all providing invaluable support and resources for artists working in the area of socially engaged practice. The training programme, as such, will provide invaluable data about the distribution, impact, and role of socially engaged art, as a future contribution to funding policy recommendations on state support of art beyond the museum’s traditional functions, and debates on art and public culture.

Science communication is at a pivotal stage in its evolution due to the emergence of digital communication platforms that are not only presenting new opportunities but are also leading to new challenges. RETHINK will provide an unprecedented view of the new science communication landscape to reveal the barriers and inequalities that stand in the way of open and reflexive connections between science and society. It will also present the way forward, encouraging evidence-based transformations in science communication practice as well as guiding relevant policy to further open Research & Innovation (R&I) to society.To achieve this, RETHINK will provide a 360° view of the current science communication landscape. It will map current science communication activities across Europe, including those taking place in the currently uncharted digital sphere. It will seek input from R&I stakeholders who are currently disengaged with science communication. Outputs will be new ways of training those who engage in science communication, including those underserved by current training - such as bloggers and social media commentators. There will be online briefs aimed at changing current science communication practices to break down barriers preventing open R&I and reach underserved audiences across the EU. Strategies will be developed to improve individual and collective sensemaking by enhancing its openness and reflexivity. Guidance on policy will also be provided to create an environment that encourages open R&I. All of these outputs will be open access, as will the data generated during the research process to encourage a broad discussion and maximise uptake. RETHINK will bring about meaningful, long-term change in science communication to maximise the opportunities and overcome the challenges of digitalisation, allowing the sector to help society meet key challenges across the European community and beyond.