Second Call for Thematic Activities

We propose organizing a Workshop on Artificial Intelligence in Finance and Central Banking in Paris in collaboration with the Bank of France. This initiative will strengthen the CIVICA network’s cooperation with central banks and international organizations, while also extending its visibility into the policy-making arena beyond higher education. The Banque de France is hosting a conference on AI in Central Banking on October 27–28, 2025. We will organize a side event at Sciences Po on October 29, where early-career researchers can present their work. 

Institutions involved: EUI, IE University, Sciences Po, SSE

Thematic priority: Data-Driven Technologies for the Social Sciences

The AI Liability Directive (AILD) is a key regulatory and policy issue currently at the center of discussions in Brussels, with debates expected to intensify over the next year. Despite its significance, the conversation remains largely dominated 
by legal perspectives, leaving little room for a broader, interdisciplinary approach. Given that AILD will be the first legislation assessed under the new Better Regulation Framework—which emphasizes accessibility, transparency, and empirical evidence—there is a pressing need to integrate insights from law, economics, and psychology. To bridge this gap, we propose an interdisciplinary workshop bringing together CIVICA consortium members and leading international experts. The event will take place during the 10th Polish Association of Law and Economics Conference in Warsaw, providing an ideal platform for a diverse and well-informed discussion. The main outcome of the workshop will be a policy report presenting CIVICA’s recommendations on AILD, addressed to both the European Commission and the European Parliament. 

Institutions involved: Bocconi, EUI, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, SSE

Thematic priority: Europe Revisited

We aim to explore the intricate relationship between disability rights and democracy in the 21st Century. The activity will include two tasks. Task 1: a public workshop that will feature current research projects about disability policies and disability politics, pursued by participating CIVICA academics. The aim is to explore various perspectives of current democratic challenges and disability 
rights. The workshop will be web streamed and will aim to reach both disability researchers and researchers of democracy, as well as disability-related NGOs across Europe. Task 2: a grant planning discussion for all team members, to explore shared interests and possibilities to form a research consortium to access external funding. 

Institutions involved: Bocconi, CEU, EUI, Sciences Po, and SGH Warsaw School of Economics

Thematic Priority: Democracy in the 21st Century

The ForRights workshop aims to support the next generation of human rights researchers in Europe and beyond. It does so by providing guidance on research design and methodology for human rights research in law and cognate disciplines and applied research methods sessions by leading human rights scholars. Held 
annually over three intensive days, ForRights provides state of the art discussions on how specific methods, such as interviews, process tracing, normative methods, comparative methods, and empirical methods are applied in human rights research from an interdisciplinary perspective. These discussions are followed by 
structured feedback sessions on the participants’ research projects. The workshop addresses an important gap in the training of the next generation of human rights researchers: the lack of multidisciplinary research methods training.

Institutions involved: CEU, EUI, Hertie School, IE University, LSE

Thematic priorities: Democracy in the 21st Century; Societies in Transition, Crises of Earth 

Political behavior is a cornerstone of research on democracy and fits squarely into the Democracy in the 21st Century theme. The PoBI conference is founded on two principles. First, it includes roughly equal numbers of faculty and PhD students in order to foster student-faculty interaction and to ensure that faculty see this as a research event and not only another teaching obligation. And second, PoBI seeks to hold iterated annual meetings that rotate between Civica institutions in order to build a community and foster a Civica identity among political behavior researchers.

Institutions involved: Bocconi, CEU, EUI, Hertie School, IE University, SNSPA, Sciences Po, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, SSE, LSE

Thematic priority: Democracy in the 21st Century

We will take an integrative approach to challenges and opportunities facing advanced democracies, broadly construed along two dimensions: globalisation and technology. First, through the effects that the joint forces of globalisation, and automation driven job displacement are having in eroding and shifting economic opportunities. Second, with technology as a medium to generate
negative feedback loops such notably through the spread of misinformation. But also with the ability to mobilize people into new forms of politics that are less deferential to elites, more anti-government and potentially corrosive of democratic structures themselves. Third, and on a more optimistic note, we will
explore the different ways in which technology can be used to reverse these trends by political entrepreneurs with judicious use of technology. We will also explore how support for strategic technological investments (e.g. through NextGeneration EU), a more civically appropriate technological environment can be garnered.

Institutions involved: Bocconi, CEU, Hertie, IE University, LSE

Thematic priority: Democracy in the 21st Century

The faculty-researcher workshop “Gender Polarization Among Younger Generations, Online and Offline” addresses the global intersections of changing gender norms and polarization among younger generations. The workshop crosses disciplines, incorporating sociology, demography, political science and computational social science. It focuses on how growing gender-based polarization among younger generations is reinforced by fragmented online media. It will also study the downstream implications of this phenomenon on family formation, fertility, labor force participation and support for radical right parties. 

Institutions involved: Bocconi, EUI, Hertie School, Sciences Po, LSE

Thematic Priorities: Democracy in the 21st Century; Societies in Transition, Crises of Earth; Data-Driven Technologies for Social Sciences