Richard Williams

Dr. Richard Williams is a postdoctoral researcher in the Philosophy and History of Science and Technology at the Technical University of Munich, where he works on the ERC-funded ‘Philosophy of Open Science’ Research Group led by Prof. Dr. Sabina Leonelli. Richard’s research sits at the intersection of political philosophy and the philosophy of science, focusing on how research infrastructures shape the democratic legitimacy of scientific expertise.

His Friedrich Schiedel project, ‘Democratic Governance of Transformative Research: Trust, Pluralism, and AI Infrastructures’, develops a framework for understanding how pluralistic research ecosystems (those that systematically integrate diverse evidence types and data practices) can achieve both scientific robustness and democratic legitimacy. Central to this framework is the concept of ‘double fragility’: the claim that scientific uncertainties and social exclusions are mutually reinforcing, creating conditions in which public distrust of expertise can rationally emerge. Drawing on Elinor Ostrom’s tradition of polycentric institutional design, the project examines how AI tools in research infrastructures may support or undermine pluralistic knowledge production, and develops practical guidance for research organisations navigating open science governance and AI integration, building on recent work with the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) and CERN.

Richard holds a PhD in Philosophy from Durham University, where he was a researcher on the ERC-funded ‘Knowledge for Use’ project. He previously held a teaching position in Political Theory at the University of Sheffield, and was an Adam Smith Fellow at the Mercatus Center, George Mason University. Richard has published in Economics and Philosophy and the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, and he is a co-editor of the ‘Philosophy of Science in Public Policy’ topical collection at Synthese.