Research for the Networked Society

The digitalisation of economic processes is accompanied by fundamental changes that affect the relationships between and strategies of enterprises, working conditions and employment, as well as innovation processes. In our research, we explore the future of work, potentials for inclusive social innovation processes and both economic and societal implications of the sharing economy.

The self-determined individual possesses the freedom to make decisions, through which she binds herself contractually, assumes moral responsibility for her own actions and disclosures personal data. However, interconnectedness and algorithmisation are changing the framework of this self-determination. The resulting societal effects are examined in an interdisciplinary approach that includes legal, moral and economic perspectives.

Digital technologies and the Internet are placing fundamentally new demands on education. Therefore, it is the aim of our research to investigate which knowledge and which competences will be necessary for people in a digital world in the future within the framework of a digital education.

This research topic investigates how participation processes in contemporary democracies change fundamentally under the influence of digital technologies and what influence digitalisation has on public opinion formation and discourses.

The networked society is characterised by profound changes in societal processes of coordination, regulation and legislation. Our research groups investigate how the conditions, forms and subjects of these processes are reconfigured as a result of the digital transformation.

Digital networking is the term we use to describe the continuous and continual linking of the physical world with the digital world. This linking process underlies many very different concepts. How this complex process should take place in different areas in coordination between society, politics, manufacturers and operators is the subject of our research work.