Tech Governance Lab

The Tech Governance Lab at CITE is dedicated to fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, advancing research, and promoting impactful outreach in the field of technology governance. By bringing together researchers, students, and professionals, the Lab aims to address critical challenges at the intersection of governance, innovation, and ethics. Through collaborative research projects, grant acquisition efforts, and science communication initiatives, the Lab serves as a hub for developing innovative solutions and engaging diverse audiences. Its mission is to strengthen collective expertise, enhance the societal impact of research, and position Campus Fryslân as a leader in the global conversation on responsible technology governance.

Current projects

AI-COMPASS

Crises often involve navigating complexity, time constraints, and moral dilemmas. While AI has the potential to support decision-making in such situations, its increasing use raises critical legal and ethical questions. The AI-COMPASS consortium, which includes the University of Groningen/Campus Fryslân, is addressing these challenges by developing real-time decision support systems that incorporate context, behaviour, and values. This project is funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) under the “Collaboration between Humans and (semi-)Autonomous Systems” programme. For more information, access the project's website.

Data Autonomy

‘Data Autonomy’, a research project relating to the future of data protection, strategic autonomy, and value-based datafication. This is one of the themes of the Jantina Tammes School of Digital Society, Technology and AI. The project is coordinated by Oskar Gstrein, who serves as the theme coordinator. Highlights include the development of the Data Autonomy Index (DAIX), as well as the development of the ‘Yearbook on Data Autonomy’ which has started in autumn 2024. The project began in October 2023 and is still ongoing.

Ransomware Resilience

‘Ransomware Resilience’, a project financed through ‘No & Moarn’ facility of the province of Friesland, the Netherlands. The aim of the project was to develop a regional network of partners to enhance awareness and resilience against Ransomware attacks. This project ran from January 2023 until June 2024. One of the highlights was the development of a serious game learning experience. Financial contribution to faculty 85.000 Euros, managed by the Data Research Centre.

Past projects

OKP Programme

Successful application and coordination of a NUFFIC Orange Knowledge Programme research Grant ‘Interdisciplinary training project on Cybersecurity’, a project on cybersecurity capacity building carried out together with Centre for Digital Society, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. One of the highlights of this project was the organisation of the 2021 and 2022 online editions of the ‘Cybersecurity for all’ (Kecerdasan Digital) course with hundreds of participants. Iterations of this course are still taking place. The project ran from January 2021 to December 2022. Financial contribution granted to faculty 286.813,76 Euros, managed by the Data Research Centre.

EDU+ Project

The EDU+ project explored the integration of Virtual Reality (VR) technology into higher education through two pilots. The first pilot, at the Reality Center, allowed students to experience the journey of a proton therapy patient and learn about the technology behind it. The second pilot, at Campus Fryslân, used 360° videos to immerse participants in cultural and environmental scenarios. The project demonstrated VR’s potential to enhance learning by offering immersive, interactive experiences that are otherwise inaccessible, while also highlighting challenges such as motion sickness and the need for alignment with learning objectives. It was led by Andrej Zwitter with support from CIT’s Visualization and Educational Support & Innovation teams.

Cutting Crime Impact (CCI): Collaboration in EU Horizon 2020 Project

Hosted by the Data Research Centre. This EU-funded initiative, led by Oskar Gstrein, Anno Bunnik, and Andrej Zwitter since October 2018, aims to empower law enforcement agencies (LEAs) and policymakers to mitigate and prevent crime. By focusing on crimes that harm citizens and communities—such as violent assault, robbery, and anti-social behavior—the project develops tailored tools, resources, and guidance (“toolkits”) to enable effective crime reduction strategies. Policymakers and LEAs in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Estonia, Portugal, and Spain will gain practical expertise in problem framing, solution design, and prototyping, which can be applied to various contexts.

Contact us

We are open to inquiries from potential collaborators, research partners, media representatives, students, or anyone interested in the initiatives of the Tech Governance Lab.

For further information, please reach out to our lab director, Taís Fernanda Blauth.