Paris, 25 January 2024. The International Observatory on Information and Democracy invites you to contribute to building the IPCC for the information space by submitting existing research through our contribution portal or by getting in touch directly via email. The Observatory invites researchers, scholars and academics to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on critical research related to Artificial Intelligence (AI), media in the digital age, data governance and mis/disinformation – the thematic areas of the three current Research Assessment Panels. You are invited to submit research you or others have conducted across these areas. Such work that focuses specifically on perspectives from the global south or by under-represented groups are highly encouraged.
Designed by a global expert group chaired by Shoshana Zuboff (Harvard Business School, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism) and Angel Gurria (former OECD Secretary-General), the Observatory aims to serve as the IPCC of the information space by aggregating and synthesizing existing research and offering policymakers a periodic global assessment of the information and communication space and how it impacts democracy. Its reports will assess the global state of knowledge and establish a shared understanding of the impact technology has on our democratic institutions and our information ecosystem.
Through publishing international and transdisciplinary meta-research assessments, it serves as a critical research-to-policy interface ensuring fact-based policymaking while identifying gaps in knowledge, pointing toward lines of inquiry necessary for fulsome understanding of the architecture of the information environment. This repository of knowledge benefits signatory states of the 52 states of the Partnership on Information and Democracy, civil society, researchers and academics, platforms, and other government stakeholders working to improve the policy environment, constructing democratic safeguards and ensuring the reliability of information.
The Observatory’s work to date, including the first general global call for contributions that opened in November 2023, has resulted in more than 1500 sources from all regions of the world. The three Research Assessment Panels continue to assess this evidence collected while further narrowing research questions where additional or complementary evidence remains necessary. See the Call for Contributions link below for complete details.
How to share?
We invite you to share research papers (published or unpublished; peer reviewed or non-peer reviewed), reports or published opinion pieces. You may submit the contributions using the template below, emailed to us at (observatory@informationdemocracy.org ) or through the survey by 15 April 2024. We can currently process submissions in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Until we develop and endorse a rigorous and reliable methodology for assessing evidence in other languages, if you wish to submit in a non-covered language, please insert a short summary of key findings in one of the languages above. You may also contact us at the email above with any questions regarding non-covered language contributions.
The call for contributions is open to any individual or institution working in any capacity on these issues. We will not attribute any individual comments to you by name. However, with your permission we will thank you for your contribution in the Acknowledgements section of the Observatory’s report. If you agree, please include your official title and/or your institution in your contribution.
You may download:
- the call for contributions with selected research questions
- the template for submitting contributions
Or fill information using this submission tool