Exploring Digital Spaces
Visit our international and interdisciplinary conference
News
News
EU project TAICo explores how AI can effectively support teachers
The Horizon Europe project TAICo will kick off at CAIS from March 24 to 26, 2025. It explores how artificial intelligence can be ethically and...
Recommendations for Independent and Effective Disinformation Monitoring in the Digital Space
CAIS supports the open letter from the Bertelsmann Foundation, CeMAS, Democracy Reporting International and ISD Germany, which provides recommendations to the new federal government for...
Perspectives of Open Sciences in a Digitalized Democracy
On April 1, 2025, Dr. Josephine Schmitt from the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) will present the CAIS Research Incubator at the 5th specialist...
How the heat transition is taking shape in Bochum
How district heating works and the opportunities it offers for sustainable heat supply will be discussed by experts on March 19.
CAISzeit – The Podcast #20
Next events
Research
Research
Research for the Digital Age
We carry out our interdisciplinary research programs for five years at a time. With these thematically and time-limited programs, we can react to social and technical developments in a focused and flexible manner.
Research programs
Digital Democratic Innovations
Prof. Christoph Bieber and his team will research how democracy is changing in a digital society and how it can be promoted through digitalization. The empirical focus of the program is on the development and use of online voting and elections. In a second empirical topic area, the researchers are looking at the political and social effects of smart city projects.
Educational technologies and artificial intelligence
How can digitalization be used positively in an educational context? How can learners be supported by intelligent systems? The research program “Educational Technologies and Artificial Intelligence” deals with the dynamic interaction between teachers, learners and supporting technologies. The program will be led by Prof. Nikol Rummel for a period of five years.
Design of trustworthy artificial intelligence
Institute
Institute

Our mission statement
Why do we do research?
We want to contribute to the human-friendly design of a digital society with excellent research in dialog with the public.
What are we researching?
We deal with the digital transformation in all its facets and test our research results in practice.
How do we do research?
With an innovative research incubator, we identify socially relevant topics and investigate them in interdisciplinary research programs.
Who is doing the research here?
We are a team of experienced and young researchers from various disciplines who engage in an intensive exchange with citizens and experts from the field.
When do we do research?
We began developing the CAIS into a central research institute in April 2021 and launched our first research program in October 2021.
Where do we do our research?
In the heart of North Rhine-Westphalia, we conduct research together with our shareholders, the universities in Bochum, Duisburg-Essen, Düsseldorf, Münster and Wuppertal as well as the Grimme Institute in Marl and the Leibniz Institutes GESIS and RWI in Cologne and Essen.
„We are now starting to develop CAIS into an institute for digitization research, which will conduct its own research programs with an interdisciplinary team of scientists. With our research, we want to understand the fascinating dynamics of the digital age and help shape it.“
Research for the Digital Age
CAIS College
eCAIS Colleg
The CAIS College supports innovative projects that deal with the social opportunities and challenges of digital transformation and develop practical perspectives. The college offers two funding lines, which can also be combined.

CAIS for journalists
Are you looking for contacts for digitization topics? We would be happy to put you in touch with the right person.
Research partnership
Are you looking for researchers to collaborate on digitalization topics? We will be happy to help you and put you in touch with researchers at CAIS.