This chair was established by the municipality of Amsterdam at the University of Amsterdam for the study of metropolitan challenges.
The Wibaut Chair is a chair established by the City of Amsterdam at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences. It was established in 1991 by the Amsterdam municipal council. The chair is intended for the study of major problems in Amsterdam. In this collection you can see who held the chairs and read their inaugural speeches. You will also find the portfolio of current chair holder Femke Kaulingfreks.
The candidate is appointed for a period of five years. From February 2023, the Wibaut chair will be held by Femke Kaulingfreks. The central approach of the chair is to deepen the theme of 'individual and community' and related topics of community spirit, control, ownership and equality of opportunity. The municipality of Amsterdam has the ambition to strengthen the connection and trust between citizens and between citizens and the government in the super-diverse city of Amsterdam. The chair holder is asked to conduct research into relationships between the municipality, citizens, companies and civil society in order to strengthen mutual connection, trust and solidarity. The research can therefore contribute to both the strengthening of community spirit and the relationship between Amsterdam residents and the municipal government.
The chair holder is asked to focus on new forms and practices of urban democracy in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area in which control and ownership are being reshaped. The relationship with inequality (in a political, cultural, socio-economic and spatial sense) is particularly important.
The chair was successively held by:
The AISSR unites all social science research of the UvA. The research programme focuses on the functioning of contemporary societies and their interrelationships from historical, comparative and empirical perspectives.
The research programme is organised into thematically focused groups with an anchor in one or more of the represented disciplines: sociology, geography, planning & development studies, political science and anthropology.
Cooperation across these programme groups is institutionalised in seven interdisciplinary centres: the Centre for Urban Studies (CUS), the Centre for Social Sciences and Global health (SSGH), the Centre for Inequality Studies (AMCIS), The Centre of Gender and Sexuality (ARC-GS), the Centre for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES), the Amsterdam Centre for Conflict Studies (ACCS), and the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies (ACES).
Source: website AISSR
The Centre for Urban Studies connects more than 50 researchers and over 50 PhD students, bringing together urban scholars in human geography, planning, sociology, political science, anthropology, and international development studies. The Centre supports existing urban research programs and stimulates interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborative projects. By enabling international academic collaborations and science-practice interactions, the CUS stimulates the formation of global networks of urban scholars, practitioners and policy makers.
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Source: Centre for Urban Studies website.
AMCIS research focuses on how institutions affect inequalities in political participation and decision-making, life courses, educational and occupational careers, and well-being. Within AMCIS, researchers from Sociology, Political Science, Demography, Educational Science, and Economics work together to study the impact of institutions on inequalities in the fields of labour, education, and politics.
The Graduate School of Social Sciences (GSSS) is an educational institute of the University of Amsterdam. Founded in January 2009, it has been built upon existing institutional structures and is the home for graduate studies in the social sciences at the UvA. The Graduate School has approximately 1000 registered Master’s students of various nationalities.
Our ambition is to be a dynamic, multifaceted institution marked by high academic standards, an open intellectual international atmosphere, and a vibrant ‘academic commons' with multiple public events, where Dutch and international students and faculty engage in debates, in seminars and in the class rooms.
Source and more information see website GSSS
The Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) is an institute for multidisciplinary research and teaching at the University of Amsterdam.
Founded in 1998, it brings together the University’s expertise in labour studies from the Faculties of Law, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business, and Medicine
AIAS’ mission is to strengthen its position as a leading academic centre in the field of labour studies in the Netherlands and abroad, fostering its acclaim as an attractive partner for international cooperation in research and teaching. Our threefold task is to:
High-quality scientific research on parenting, child development and education with societal impact
The Psychology Research Institute has six programme groups which concentrate on a wide variety of topics. These groups have an overall orientation towards basic, quantitative and experimental research.
The research groups have the following focus:
Brain and Cognition
Clinical Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Psychological Methods
Social Psychology
Work and Organizational Psychology
The platform 'Citizens, Society and Artificial Intelligence (CiSAI)' unites social and behavioural science researchers who analyse the effects of AI on societal dynamics and on the lives of individual citizens.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is more than just a set of technologies. AI will fundamentally affect citizens and transform societies, in both desirable and undesirable ways. The FMG Platform Citizens, Society and Artificial Intelligence (CiSAI) unites Social and Behavioural science researchers who analyse these transformations and the effects of AI on societal dynamics and on the lives of individual citizens. CiSAI focuses on how people and organizations use AI and how these technologies and their application are shaped by political regulation, technical developments and popular trust or mistrust. CiSAI will generate new academic insights and practically applicable findings.
This kind of research thrives and is valorised through the interaction with non-academic stakeholders, like ministries, public authorities, and municipalities. They need to reap the benefits of AI applications while safeguarding public values and avoiding ethical pitfalls and unintended side-effects. CiSAI fuses the FMG research that speaks to these concerns and elucidates the societal challenges involved.
The platform 'Citizens, Society and Artificial Intelligence (CiSAI)' unites social and behavioural science researchers who analyse the effects of AI on societal dynamics and on the lives of individual citizens. CiSAI focuses on the following themes.
AI & Democracy, media and public opinion
AI systems are used to increase the effectiveness of targeting citizens with political messages, normally through digital channels. It can thereby contribute to communication bubbles, systematic misinformation and polarization. In that way, AI affects and may damage democratic decision-making dynamics.
Link to research theme
AI & Inequalities
AI systems could affect patterns of inequality in a whole range of ways. They may change patterns of employment, systematically putting many people who perform more or less routine tasks out of work. At the same time, people (or social classes) controlling AI might reap significant economic benefits. A central worry is that AI systems blindly reproduce unequal historical pattern in social interaction. Many scholars therefore highlight AI’s reproduction of gendered, racial and potentially other forms of discrimination.
Link to research theme
Public policy and governance of AI
AI has broad implications for social life and politics. It is essential to understand better how and by whom it is governed, and why so. The ensuing questions range from international initiatives to govern AI and lobbying by tech companies to explaining differences between national regulatory approaches and the role of expertise and citizen opinions in the formation of policies. Governments use AI in a whole variety of ways, from monitoring and guiding traffic flows to guiding policing and border control.
Link to research theme
AI & Consumption
As more and more people consume cultural content through digital portals (Netflix, Spotify, etc.), their consumption patterns are shaped by the choices that AI systems make for them. AI systems are also used to target citizens for the sale of particular products, based on their presumed preferences.
Link to research theme
The reconfiguration of (public) space through AI
Around the world, authorities monitor citizen behavior in public spaces with AI-driven camera surveillance. These monitoring systems tend to form part of oppressive state policies towards citizens. However, the recordings also provide unique opportunities for social scientists to understand and explain real-life behavior, including ‘hidden’ behavior such as during criminal events, conflicts and violence.
Link to research theme
AI & the reorganization of the workspace
AI is changing how we approach our daily work. For example, AI can provide new analytical tools, suggest courses of action and (selection) decisions, influence social interactions, or monitor organizational dynamics. The consequences are profound: the introduction of AI systems at work are bound to affect employees’ perceptions of autonomy, competency, and responsibility at work, while also causing feelings of insecurity among employees about the future of their work.
Link to research theme
Source: UvA - CiSAI
Sociaaleconomische ongelijkheid, ruimtelijke segregatie en lagere betrokkenheid van bepaalde groepen bij politieke besluitvorming leiden tot een groeiende participatieve ongelijkheid in Amsterdam. Vooral laagopgeleide jongeren en jongeren met een migratieachtergrond hebben minder vertrouwen in de institutionele politiek. Juist nu, in coronatijd, worstelt de gemeente met het betrekken van jongeren bij besluitvorming die hen aangaat. Tegelijkertijd zijn jongeren in Nieuw-West, Noord en Zuid-Oost, waar de formele politieke participatie laag is, actief via maatschappelijke (zelf)organisaties, sociale actie en culturele expressie. We onderzoeken hoe praktijken van informele politiekmaatschappelijke participatie jongeren een platform voor belangenbehartiging bieden en de verbinding tussen jongeren en overheidsinstellingen versterken. We vertalen werkzame elementen uit deze praktijken naar strategieën en interventies om participatieve ongelijkheid in Amsterdam terug te dringen. Inzichten uit dit onderzoek zijn zowel nuttig voor sociale professionals die de participatie en inspraak van jonge Amsterdammers uit achtergestelde buurten willen bevorderen, als voor gemeentelijke beleidsmakers die de Amsterdamse democratiseringsagenda vormgeven. Het project loopt van april 2021 tot en met maart 2023.
Partners in dit project zijn:
Inholland, UvA – politicologie, HvA – Buutcampus, OBA, Pakhuis de Zwijger, Argan, Netwerk Democratie, Framer Framed, Young Amsterdam, Bildung Academie, Sensa Zorg, Swazoom
