Exploring Digital Spaces
Visit our international and interdisciplinary conference
Connected for the digital Society
Prof. Dr. Tim A. Majchrzak becomes the new Scientific Director of the Center for Advanced Internet Studies
News
News
Exploring the Darknet: Between Safe Haven, Crime, and Conspiracy Theories
In this episode of CAISzeit, host Dr. Matthias Begenat speaks with Dr. Marco Wähner, postdoctoral researcher at CAIS, about the fascination, functions, and misconceptions surrounding...
Imagining Sustainable Urban Infrastructure: A Participatory Approach to understanding citizens mental models of heat grids
Pauline Heger and Karen Kuribayashi will present the results of the “Pop-Up Citizen Lab” project on participatory heat network planning in Bochum at the International...
Conspiracy Theories in Anonymized Networks
On June 23, 2025, Marco Wähner will present preliminary results of a joint study with Felix Soldner (GESIS) at the Eighth Annual Cybercrime Conference in...
CAIS contributions at the ISLS Annual Meeting in Helsinki
The team behind the research program “Educational Technologies and Artificial Intelligence” is going to present several contributions at the annual meeting of the International Society...
CAISzeit – The Podcast #22
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
Research incubator
The central objective of the CAIS Research Incubator is to develop and test processes to promote cross-sector networking and interdisciplinary collaboration in an innovative framework for science and research.
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
Our Team
The CAIS staff will be happy to help you with your request. We can advise you on the application process and look forward to welcoming you as a Fellow or at one of our public events, for example.
PhDnet@CAIS – Network for PhD students
PhDnet@CAIS brings together doctoral students who are working on the consequences of digitalization for society. They build contacts across disciplines, acquire practical skills and exchange experiences.
Job offers
Student/Scientific Assistant (all gender)
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.
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