On 7 February, NWO published the call for proposals for the programme "Responsible innovation. Designing for public values in a digital world". This programme is a collaboration between NWO, The Hague Municipal Council, the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Justice and Security. The deadline for submitting concise (compulsory) pre-proposals is 19 March 2019.

The programme "Responsible innovation. Designing for public values in a digital world" is aimed at finding technological and institutional solutions for fundamental value conflicts in digital societies.

Big Data, artificial intelligence (AI), internet and the internet of things, blockchain, robotics and innovations in the digital terrain can be used constructively and responsibly to solve problems and to realise shared values and ideals. However, digital technology can also be used to support malicious parties in the realisation of their goals. In recent years, it has become clear what the role of digital technologies can be in undermining democratic processes, for manipulating and influencing citizens and consumers, attacking telecom, energy and civil infrastructure, disrupting payment traffic, and weaponisation.

In this digital age, it is of the utmost importance that municipalities and government ministries pay due consideration to public values in their policy. The research agenda "Responsible innovation. Designing for public values in the digital world" forms the basis for this call. This agenda ties in with the knowledge questions of these parties and as yet unanswered research questions in this area, and is characterised by the interaction between public values and digital technology. There are four themes:

• New digital technology in the modern rule of law
• Privacy and human rights in new digital networks
• Big Data science for a democratic public space
• Complexity as a consequence of hyper-connectivity for public and private actors

NWO Responsible Innovation programme

This call is part of the NWO Responsible Innovation programme. The dissemination and utilisation of the research results is an important priority of this programme. Therefore researchers work together with parties from policy and practice.

Available budget

The total available budget is 3.2 million euros. NWO will award a maximum of 750,000 euro per project.

More information

• NWO funding page
• Programme page on the NWO website about Responsible Innovation
• The secretary of NWO Responsible Innovation is Tessa Lansbergen. She can be reached via t.lansbergen@nwo.nl or mvi@nwo.nl.