UTDesignLabWorking together for digital democracy

Working together for digital democracy

DesignLab and Rathenau Instituut join forces

DesignLab University of Twente and the Rathenau Instituut in The Hague are going to collaborate. To kick off the cooperation, the new partners will be organising an event about digital democracy on 7 March 2018, just before the municipal elections.

As both DesignLab and the Rathenau Instituut are operating on the intersection of science, technology, and society, they consider cooperation a logical next step. The event about digital democracy is its first visible result.

The Rathenau Instituut performs research on the consequences of digitisation for society. It published, for example, the report “Online participation in decisions” (in Dutch: Online Meebeslissen). According to the Rathenau Instituut, DesignLab offers a platform to enable an even wider-ranging discussion about digital democracy.

With its ‘Science2Design4Society’ method, DesignLab already links varying scientific disciplines to practical solutions for social issues. “Cooperation with partners such as the Rathenau Instituut will ensure that we can offer even more added value as a connecting creative platform for students, education staff, researches, and (non-)profit-making organizations,” says Frank Kresin, Managing Director DesignLab.

Event
The event in DesignLab on 7 March will deal with digital democracy, also known as ‘citizen participation’. Among others, Ira van Keulen (Senior Researcher Rathenau Instituut) and Peter-Paul Verbeek (professor Philosophy of Humans and Technology, scientific co-director DesignLab) will make a contribution.

More information about the programme and free registration for the event via utwente.nl/designlab will follow in February. As at DesignLab, the working language will be English.