See our past projects

  • Programme on Adolescent Well-Being in the Digital Age

    Participants: Professor Andrew Przybylski

    This programme addresses the assumptions that the overall mental well-being of young people is undergoing a pronounced period of decline and that digital technologies might be driving this trend.

  • Explaining black-box decisions

    Participants: Professor Sandra Wachter, Dr Brent Mittelstadt, Dr Chris Russell

    This project transforms the concept of counterfactual explanations into a practically useful tool for explaining automated black-box decisions.

  • AI and the Right to Reasonable Algorithmic Inferences

    Participants: Professor Sandra Wachter

    The project will identify weaknesses in general and sectoral regulatory mechanisms - e.g. the limited protections afforded to inferences in data protection law - and argue for greater accountability by establishing a ‘right to reasonable inferences'.

  • Computational Propaganda

    Participants: Professor Philip Howard, Dr Vidya Narayanan, Dr Dimitra (Mimie) Liotsiou, Lisa-Maria Neudert, Samantha Bradshaw

    This project will focus on how bots, algorithms and other forms of automation are used by political actors in countries around the world.

  • Oxford Martin Programme on Misinformation, Science and Media

    Participants: Professor Phil Howard, Professor Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

    In this three-year programme researchers will examine the interplay between systematic misinformation campaigns, news coverage, and increasingly important social media platforms for public understanding of science and technological innovation.

  • Current Affairs 2.0: Agenda setting in the European Union

    Participants: Dr Scott Hale, Fabian Flöck, Przemyslaw Grabowicz, David Jurgens, Chico Camargo

    This project seeks to measure and explain what societal issues are given the highest priorities by media organizations, policy makers, and the general public in different nations and languages of the European Union.

  • What Do ‘the People’ Want? Analysing Online Populist Challenges to Europe

    Participants: Dr Sebastian Stier , Prof Ralph Schroeder, Dr Caterina Froio

    Digital media allow populist messages to gain circulation, bypassing mainstream channels. This project aims to understand how widespread and impactful such messages are among the general public.

  • A Right to Reasonable Inferences in Advertising and Financial Services

    Participants: Professor Sandra Wachter, Dr Brent Mittelstadt, Dr Silvia Milano, Dr Johann Laux, Dr Chris Russell

    This project uses legal and ethical analysis to establish the requirements for applying a ‘right to reasonable inferences’ in Europe to protect against privacy-invasive and discriminatory automated decision-making in advertising and financial services.

  • Political Communication, AI and Data Diversity in the US

    Participants: Dr Victoria Nash, Professor Philip N. Howard, Dr Dimitra (Mimie) Liotsiou, Lisa-Maria Neudert, Dr Vidya Narayanan

    This project investigates contemporary trends in political communication, political polarization, artificial intelligence, and data diversity in the United States.

  • Strengthening Digital Democracy

    Participants: Dr Victoria Nash, Professor Philip N. Howard, Dr Dimitra (Mimie) Liotsiou, Lisa-Maria Neudert, Dr Vidya Narayanan

    This programme supports research into the use of computational propaganda in developing democracies, our management of strategic relations with industry, government and civil society stakeholders, and capacity transfer to civil society groups.

  • GCRF Decent Work: FAIRWORK in the Platform Economy in the Global South

    Participants: Prof D'Arcy Du Toit, Prof Sandra Fredman, Prof Mark Graham, Prof Richard Heeks, Prof Jean-Paul Van Belle, Dr Jamie Woodcock

    This project aims to understand the contextual, contractual and practical nature of platform work, to identify its shortfall from decent work standards and to contribute to the development of its governance and regulation.

  • AI & Data Diversity

    Participants: Professor Gina Neff

    This project seeks to advance public understanding of data diversity and the everyday decisions around AI and technology innovation. This will help build better technologies and strengthen the science on diversity in technology-led growth.

  • Ethical auditing for automated decision-making

    Participants: Brent Mittelstadt

    This project defines requirements for ethical auditing of automated decision-making systems.

  • Creative Algorithmic Intelligence: Capabilities and Complementarity

    Participants: Professor Michael Osborne, Professor Rebecca Eynon, Anne Ploin, Dr Paul Duckworth

    This project seeks to map present and future interfaces between human and artificial creative intelligence, and investigate the ways in which creative human/AI collaboration may contribute to human flourishing.

  • Oxford Martin Programme on the Illegal Wildlife Trade

    Participants: Dr Joss Wright

    This project will develop an international hub to track and analyse the global illegal wildlife trade, both online and offline, and develop strategies to reduce the threat of the trade through social policy interventions.

  • OxIS: Oxford Internet Surveys

    Participants: Grant Blank, Julia Lefkowitz

    Research on access, use and attitudes to the Internet in Britain based on biennial surveys covering (for example) digital and social inclusion and exclusion, mobile use, social media, safety and privacy concerns, Internet regulation, and behaviour.

  • iLabour: The Construction of Labour Markets, Institutions and Movements on the Internet

    Participants: Professor Vili Lehdonvirta, Dr Otto Kässi, Greetje (Gretta) Corporaal, Dr Alex J. Wood

    The iLabour project is premised on the idea that a fundamental change is taking place in labour markets. It seeks to understand the social and policy implications of this momentous shift.

  • A Fairwork Foundation: Towards fair work in the platform economy

    Participants: Professor Mark Graham, Dr Jamie Woodcock, Adam Badger

    The Fairwork Foundation will certify online labour platforms, using leverage from workers, consumers, and platforms to improve the welfare and job quality of digital workers.

  • Data Work: Collaboration, Sense Making and the Possible Futures for Work

    Participants: Professor Gina Neff

    How do new types of data change workplace practices?

  • Cyber Security Behaviours (CYBERSECURITY)

    Participants: Professor Bertrand Venard, Professor Viktor Mayer-Schönberger

    Through empirical research, this project seeks to understand the determinants of individual cyber security behaviours of students in France and the UK.