Inga Ulnicane

University of Cambridge | Cam · Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence

This paper examines how the governance in AI policy documents have been framed as way to resolve public controversies surrounding AI. It draws on the studies of governance of emerging technologies, the concept of policy framing, and analysis of 49 recent policy documents dedicated to AI which have been prepared in the context of technological hype...

This study examines the policy discussions surrounding the purpose of the development and use of an emerging technology. It applies the two stylized technology policy frames of economic growth and societal challenges to analyse framing of one of the key emerging technologies today—Artificial Intelligence (AI). It demonstrates that recent AI policy...

While recent discussions about Artificial Intelligence (AI) as one of the most powerful technologies of our times tend to portray it as a predominantly technical issue, it also has major social, political and cultural implications. So far these have been mostly studied from ethical, legal and economic perspectives, while politics and policy have re...

While artificial intelligence (AI) is often presented as a neutral tool, growing evidence suggests that it exacerbates gender, racial, and other biases leading to discrimination and marginalization. This study analyzes the emerging agenda on intersectionality in AI. It examines four high‐profile reports dedicated to this topic to interrogate how th...

The launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 led to major controversies about the governance of generative artificial intelligence (AI). This article examines the first international governance and policy initiatives dedicated specifically to generative AI: the G7 Hiroshima process, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development reports, and the U...

Neuroscience education is challenged by rapidly evolving technology and the development of interdisciplinary approaches for brain research. The Human Brain Project (HBP) Education Programme aimed to address the need for interdisciplinary expertise in brain research by equipping a new generation of researchers with skills across neuroscience, medici...

This paper examines the notion of capability development through the lens of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). It describes how RRI capabilities can be promoted and developed through capacity-building activities by drawing on a reflection of the experiences of some members of the Ethics and Society team of the EU-funded Human Brain Project...

Bias is a key issue in expert and public discussions about Artificial Intelligence (AI). While some hope that AI will help to eliminate human bias, others are concerned that AI will exacerbate it. To highlight political and power aspects of bias in AI, this contribution examines so far largely overlooked topic of framing of bias in AI policy. Among...

This chapter examines the politics of public research funding by focusing on one of the most prominent international initiatives, namely the European Union’s Framework Programme. It investigates how over the years policy frames combining certain values and interests have contributed to the emergence and expansion of the EU public research funding....

Responsible Research and Innovation is promoted by research funders and scientific communities as a way to place societal needs and values at the centre of research and innovation. In practice, however, legal compliance still tends to dominate the RRI agenda. In order to move beyond the dominance of legal compliance and address a broader societal a...

This chapter examines the politics of public research funding by focusing on one of the most prominent international initiatives, namely the European Union's Framework Programme. It investigates how over the years policy frames combining certain values and interests have contributed to the emergence and expansion of the EU public research funding....

This Open Forum contribution critically interrogates the use of space race rhetoric in current discussions about artificial intelligence (AI). According to this rhetoric, similar to the space race of the twentieth century, AI development is portrayed as a rivalry among superpowers where one country will win and reap major benefits, while others wil...

In recent years, national governments, international organizations and stakeholders have launched numerous Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategies and reports. Recent research has mostly focused on AI ethics, while topics of AI policy and governance have received less attention. To address this research gap, this chapter addresses two main question...

This introductory chapter to the technology section provides an overview of complex relationships between technologies and European integrations. First, it highlights that in European integration literature the term ‘technology’ is often in multiple ways typically without explicit reflection on its meaning. While the term technology is frequently u...

In the context of recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and launch of AI policy documents and ethics guidelines around the world, since 2017, the European Union (EU) is developing its approach to AI. This chapter examines the key EU AI policy documents and the way the EU is positioning its AI policy vis-à-vis other global players. It draw...

Drawing on more than eight years working to implement Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in the Human Brain Project, a large EU-funded research project that brings together neuroscience, computing, social sciences, and the humanities, and one of the largest investments in RRI in one project, this article offers insights on RRI and explores i...

As international collaboration within the scientific community is increasing, for scientific and political reasons, it is necessary to deepen our understanding of tension between self-organising and steering. To do so, this contribution contrasts two in-depth case studies of international collaboration in nanosciences. Tracing the emergence and evo...

The Ethics and Society Subproject has developed this Opinion in order to clarify lessons the Human Brain Project (HBP) can draw from the current discussion of artificial intelligence, in particular the social and ethical aspects of AI, and outline areas where it could usefully contribute. The EU and numerous other bodies are promoting and implement...

Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have led to intense debates about benefits and concerns associated with this powerful technology. These concerns and debates have similarities with developments in other emerging technologies characterized by prominent impacts and uncertainties. Against this background, this paper asks, What can AI go...

The interdisciplinary field of neurorobotics looks to neuroscience to overcome the limitations of modern robotics technology, to robotics to advance our understanding of the neural system’s inner workings, and to information technology to develop tools that support those complementary endeavours. The development of these technologies is still at an...

This chapter analyzes ongoing European Union (EU) policy changes that affect Big Science and Research Infrastructures. These changes are part of a broader EU political agenda to strengthen the EU’s global position, facilitate growth and enhance coordination among EU member states. Important initiatives for Big Science and Research Infrastructures i...

Recently, major research powers around the world have made unprecedented investments in neuroscience as one of the most promising technologies of the twenty-first century. However, advances in neuroscience can be used for beneficial as well as harmful purposes. This chapter analyses the governance of dual-use research in the EU by focusing on the m...

While international research collaboration has a long history of facilitating knowledge exchange, creativity and discoveries (Wagner, 2008), it has also been noted that ‘… there might be a danger of ossified, “old boy” networks of collaboration locking out newcomers and new ideas’ (Hicks and Katz, 1996: 44). During the past decades, international r...

Purpose This paper aims to critically assess approaches to sex and gender in the Human Brain Project (HBP) as a large information and communication technology (ICT) project case study using intersectionality. Design/methodology/approach The strategy of the HBP is contextualised within the wider context of the representation of women in ICT, and cr...

Current discussions of the ethical aspects of big data are shaped by concerns regarding the social consequences of both the widespread adoption of machine learning and the ways in which biases in data can be replicated and perpetuated. We instead focus here on the ethical issues arising from the use of big data in international neuroscience collabo...

Ethical issues, associated data lifecycle stages and references.

The increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to help facilitate neuroscience adds a new level of complexity to the question of how ethical issues of such research can be identified and addressed. Current research ethics practice, based on ethics reviews by institutional review boards (IRB) and underpinned by ethical princ...

Current and newly emerging insights and technologies arising from research in brain sciences increase capabilities to access, assess and affect thought, emotion and behaviour. While much of this research and development is directed towards clinical use, it also has applications in other settings, notably in the political, security, intelligence and...

Soon after the establishment of the European Research Council (ERC) in 2007, it had become considered a success story of European research policy. Its funding for excellent science has attracted the interest of the scientific community, stakeholders and policy-makers. Social science research of the ERC helps to understand its role and impact. This...

This chapter provides an overview of universities and higher education system in Latvia with a particular focus on its development over past 25 years, its funding, governance and academic profession. It discusses ongoing developments and specific features of Latvia’s higher education such as current funding reform to introduce performance-based fun...

An important element of the EU policy discourse during times of crisis has been a call to invest more in research and innovation as sources of future growth. To study the effects of crisis in this policy area, this article draws on an analysis of expert interviews, policy documents and relevant literature. It argues that the crisis has led to incre...

While the scientific community has already for centuries collaborated across borders, science policy and funding are predominantly decided at a national level. Over the past decades, European-level science policy and funding mechanisms have developed, supporting collaboration and competition beyond the national level. A new book edited by Wedlin an...

In recent years, the ‘Grand Challenges’ idea has become widely used in research and innovation policy around the world, shifting the focus to tackling global societal problems in areas such as energy, health and environment through boundary spanning collaborations. This paper traces origins and global diffusion of the concept and analyses it in the...

This research paper analyses the European Research Area initiative launched in 2000 to facilitate the free circulation of researchers, scientific knowledge and technology in the EU. In particular, the first three closely related ERA priorities are studied: more effective national research systems, transnational cooperation, and open labour market f...

An important element of the EU policy discourse during times of crisis has been a call to invest more in research and innovation as sources of future growth. To study the effects of crisis in this policy area, this article draws on an analysis of expert interviews, policy documents and relevant literature. It argues that the crisis has led to incre...

It is often argued that the unintended consequences of science policy transformation over the last 50 years—increased role of fixed-term project funding, evaluation and temporary contracts—are short-termism, fragmentation and limited freedom to choose research topics and collaborators. This paper focuses on a phenomenon that should be highly unlike...

The aim of this article is to analyse the evolution of the ideational framework of the most ambitious initiative in supranational research governance so far – the European Research Area (ERA), launched by the European Commission in 2000. In order to do so, the ERA initiative is analysed against the background of the long-term development of the sci...

This editorial introduces the notion of the Europe of Knowledge and places it in the European integration research agenda. We first describe what the concept means before suggesting how to approach the Europe of Knowledge as a new case for investigating European integration dynamics. This discussion revolves around the evolution of policy developme...

Chou, M-H. and I.Ulnicane (2015), guest editors, a special issue “New Horizons in the Europe of Knowledge”, Journal of Contemporary European Research 11 (1): 1-152.

While for centuries scientific activities have spanned national borders, research has been organised largely nationally and locally with diverse missions, reward systems, hierarchies and funding structures. Diversity of research governance facilitating development of a wide variety of competences and approaches can ensure opportunities for highly c...

La Lettonie est un petit pays de 2,3 millions d’habitants, situé dans le Nord-est de l’Europe, sur la côte est de la mer Baltique. C’est un pays en voie de rattrapage économique qui a subi une transformation politique et économique radicale pendant les années 1990, passant d’un régime autoritaire communiste et d’une économie socialiste planifiée à...

Latvia is a small country with 2.3 million inhabitants located in the North-East Europe at the Eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. It is a catching-up economy, which in the 1990s underwent political and economic transformation from an authoritarian communist party rule and centrally planned socialist economy to a democratic multiparty government and l...

As a small European country that joined the European Union in 2004 after being part of the USSR for half a century, Latvia and its system of higher education and research is continually adapting to changing conditions, both nationally and internationally. While it experienced a certain depression in the 1990s, conditioned by the reorientation from...

This analytical country report has been prepared as part of the ERAWATCH project. ERAWATCH is a joint initiative of the European Commission's Directorates General for Research and Joint Research Centre. For further information on ERAWATCH see http://cordis.europa.eu/erawatch. The analytical framework and the structure have been developed by the Ins...

The INNO-Policy TrendChart, previously TrendChart on Innovation, has been running since January 2000. It now tracks innovation policy developments in all 27 EU Member States, plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Croatia, Turkey, Israel, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, the USA and India. This document has been prepared within the framework of an initiat...

The INNO-Policy TrendChart, previously TrendChart on Innovation, has been running since January 2000. It now tracks innovation policy developments in all 27 EU Member States, plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Croatia, Turkey, Israel, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, USA and India. This document has been prepared within the framework of an initiative...

The Trend Chart on Innovation has been running since January 2000. It now tracks Innovation policy developments in all 25 EU Member States, plus Bulgaria, Iceland, Israel, Liechtenstein, Norway, Romania, Switzerland and Turkey. It also provides a policy monitoring service for three other non-European zones: NAFTA/Brazil, Asia and the MEDA countries...

One of the priorities of the European Union is building of knowledge-based economy. However, Eastern enlargement has widened gap within the EU member states in innovation performance. In order to build innovation capacities in Central and Eastern Europe, issue of the role of public policy to facilitate innovation is of particular importance. Howeve...

The aim of the article is to discuss the impact of European Union (EU) research, technological development and innovation (RTDI) policy on national RTDI policies in the new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). RTDI issues belong to the EU policy domains where main policy-making instruments are financial programmes and policy coordi...