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Professor Vili Lehdonvirta

Professor of Economic Sociology and Digital Social Research

Professor
Vili Lehdonvirta

Professor of Economic Sociology and Digital Social Research

About

Vili Lehdonvirta is Professor of Economic Sociology and Digital Social Research at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. He leads a research group examining the politics and socio-economic implications of digital technologies. He is one of the world’s most cited authors on gig work and the platform economy. His current research examines the geopolitics of digital infrastructures. His books Cloud Empires: How digital platforms are overtaking the state and how we can regain control and Virtual Economies: Design and analysis are published by MIT Press. He is a frequent keynote speaker and has advised the European Commission, the World Bank, and other public, private, and third-sector organizations on digital policy and governance.

Lehdonvirta’s latest book Cloud Empires was shortlisted for the Association of American Publishers’ 2023 PROSE Award. “It is a highly accessible and refreshingly original book, and a must-read for anyone interested in our digital past, present, or future” (Regulation & Governance). The book questions the current paradigm of platform competition regulation and puts forward a historically grounded argument towards the democratization and constitutionalization of transnational digital institutions. “The hypothesis underlying the book is bold: the organization of virtual space by digital platforms follows a trajectory similar to the social organization of Western societies in the past centuries” (Information, Communication & Society). Cloud Empires has been adopted as a textbook in undergraduate and graduate courses in economic sociology, organization studies, and political theory. An Italian translation is published by Einaudi, with translations to Chinese and Japanese forthcoming. From 2018 to 2021 Lehdonvirta served on the European Commission’s Expert Group on the Online Platform Economy, advising policy makers on platform regulation and governance.

From 2015 to 2021 Lehdonvirta led the iLabour research project, a major investigation funded by the European Research Council on the implications of digital platforms to labour markets, global development, and collective action. One of the project’s outputs was the Online Labour Index, an automated statistics production system adopted by researchers, journalists, and international organizations. At the project’s conclusion the system was transferred to the International Labour Organization to be maintained as a public research resource. The project also produced over a dozen highly cited articles in journals such a Socio-Economic Review, Sociology, and Journal of Management. According to a 2021 bibliometric analysis, Lehdonvirta co-authored the top two most cited studies in gig economy research. From 2018 to 2019 Lehdonvirta served on the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on Digital Transformation and EU Labour Markets, advising policy makers on issues such as access to platform data.

Lehdonvirta’s current research focuses on the international political economy and geopolitics of digital infrastructures. His Political Geography of AI Infrastructure research project seeks to map the world’s GPU compute, one of the key bottlenecks in AI system development and operation. Lehdonvirta’s group uses both conventional social science research methods as well as novel data science approaches to map infrastructures and model policy impacts. His research has been supported by major grants from the European Research Council, the UK Economic and Social Research Council, and other science funding agencies.

Lehdonvirta is a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, an associate member of the Department of Sociology, Oxford, and a former Turing Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute, London. He co-organizes the Digital Economy Network of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics and sits on the editorial boards of the journals Information Society and Journal of International Business Policy. From 2013 to 2018 he was editor of the journal Policy & Internet. In 2022-2023 he served on the European Research Council’s Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Grants panel.

Lehdonvirta holds a PhD in Economic Sociology from the University of Turku (2009) and a MSc from the Helsinki University of Technology (2005). He has previously worked at the London School of Economics, the University of Tokyo, and the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology. In 2020 he was a visiting professor at the Institute of Innovation Research, Hitotsubashi University. Before his academic career Lehdonvirta worked as a software developer.

Areas of interest for doctoral supervision

I am currently especially interested in supervising doctoral research on the international political economy and geopolitics of digital infrastructures. By digital infrastructures I mean digital platforms and marketplaces, but also concrete material infrastructures like compute clusters, data centres, and undersea cables. I am interested in how political and economic interests shape the geography and topology of such infrastructures, and with what political or socio-economic consequences. Candidates should demonstrate an interest in grounding their research in fundamental social or political science theory.

Research Interests

Digital economy, plaform governance, critical infrastructure, cloud computing, digital sovereignty, tech war, European Union, Southeast Asia, Japan

Positions at the OII

  • Professor of Economic Sociology and Digital Social Research, October 2020 -
  • Associate Professor, May 2016 - October 2020
  • Senior Research Fellow, May 2016 - October 2020
  • Director of DPhil Programme, May 2013 - May 2016
  • Research Fellow, May 2013 - May 2016

Research

Related Sites

Integrity Statement

In the past five years, I have received research funding (in approximate order of significance) from the European Research Council, the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the Dieter Schwarz Foundation, the Hans Böckler Foundation, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, the International Labour Organization, Google, Activision, and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.

In the past five years I have been a member of the Academic Advisory Board of Demos Helsinki and served on the European Commission’s Expert Group on the Online Platform Economy and the High-Level Expert Group on Digital Transformation and EU Labour Markets.

I conduct my research in line with the University's academic integrity code of practice.

Recordings

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News & Press

Teaching

Current Courses

Digital Technology and Economic Organization

This course will teach students how to apply basic social science theory towards analysing the impact of digital technologies on economic organization.