DigiSem 2026 | Balancing Digital Safety between Risks, Rights, and Regulation

This year’s Digitalisation Research Seminar is dedicated to Digital Safety as a human-centered, interdisciplinary research field. We aim to bring together early career researchers who examine human and societal risks of digital tech-nologies, including harm arising from bias, dis- and misinformation, loss of control, and institutional misalignment, as well as challenges in risk preven-tion for vulnerable groups, such as children.

Our goal is to promote interdisciplinary dialogue and networking among ear-ly career researchers, and to advance research that contributes to safer, more responsible, and socially sustainable digital systems. Constructive feedback and cross-cutting discussions are central to the seminar.

Keynote 1

Prof. Dr. Lena Kästner is professor for philosophy, computer science and artificial intelligence at University of Bayreuth and a PI on the project FoGG at bidt.  The title of her keynote „AI and the Safety Paradox: Convenience, Control, or Compromise?“

Keynote 2

Dr. Jens Karschau, is a civil servant at the department of digital consumer protection at the Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (BSI). In his keynote on “Cyber-Resilience: Bridging Consumer Protection, Smart Hardware, and the AI Frontier” he will focus on the security of consumer ecosystems and their systemic risks as well as the evolving role of Artificial Intelligence.

Important Dates

• Deadline for registration: 07 September 2026
• DigiSem: 21‒22 September 2026 at WI in Berlin
   

Please register here

Organising Team

Maria Staudte, bidt     
Nina Hahne, CAIS
Katharina Mosene, HBI
Stefanie Regel, WI

About the convening institutions

bidt: The Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt), an Institute within the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, contributes to a better understanding of digital transformation’s developments and challenges. Thereby, we provide the foundations which will shape society’s digital future responsibly, for the common good.

CAIS: The Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) in North Rhine-Westphalia promotes the active shaping of the social, political, economic, and cultural changes that digitalization brings about. The Center sees itself as a place for innovative interdisciplinary research and as a source of inspiration for a critical public that wants to find agreement on models for a self-determined life in the digital society.

HBI: The research perspective of the Leibniz-Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI) focuses on media transformation and related structural changes of public communication. With its cross-medial, interdisciplinary and independent research, it combines basic research and transfer research, and thus, generates knowledge on issues relevant for politics, commerce and civil society.

WI: The Weizenbaum Institute for Networked Society (WI) is the German Internet Institute, a place of excellent research on the transformation and design processes of digital change. In the spirit of Joseph Weizenbaum, we research the necessary framework conditions, means and processes for individual and social self-determination in a networked society. We understand self-determination as a design principle that is central to the preservation of human dignity and democracy.