Partnership with the International Digital Self-Determination Network

Data is changing how we live and engage with and within our societies and our economies. As our digital footprints grow, how do we re-imagine ourselves in the digital world? How will we be able to determine the data-driven decisions that impact us?

Members of the  Munich School of Politics and Public Policy  (Hochschule für Politik, HfP) are participants in the International Digital Self-Determination Network, a collaborative multi-stakeholder effort that is defining and advancing the concept of digital self-determination. The concept aims to propose ways to create and engage in trustworthy data spaces and ensure human-centric approaches when living in a data-driven society. It aims to enable and bolster the digital self-determination of individuals.

As part of this collaboration, members of the  HfP contributed to a  co-organized conference on digital self-determination in June 2022 in collaboration with the Directorate of International Law (DIL) of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. At the conference, which took place in Lucerne, Switzerland, four studios presenting and exploring use cases were set up and learnings from these use cases were analyzed, compared, and discussed. HfP Rector Prof. Dr. Urs Gasser shared the collected insights with the audience and acted as a co-research partner, providing support during the conference. He organized and conducted several meetings with the DIL and the stakeholders of the studios to discuss progress made in the studios to ensure a common methodological approach and contributed to translating these findings into a draft report.

The network's research and outreach efforts were continuously supported by the team of the Professorship of Public Policy, Governance and Innovative Technologies, offering guidance, support, and mentoring to the expanding global network.

The other founding partners of the network are the Directorate of International Law, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs; the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Data Governance at Singapore Management University; the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University; and The GovLab at New York University.