Researchers on the Road
Participating scholars from the Outgoing Mobility Program (OMP) share insights from their international research stays, reflecting on their academic work, new collaborations, and experiences in different research environments. Their reports highlight how international mobility contributes to scientific exchange, the development of innovative research perspectives, and the strengthening of international academic networks.
Reports from our Researchers on the Road
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Ilaria Vitulano: Research Stay at the University of Bern, April–May 2026
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Martha Stolze: Research Stay at the University of Oxford, January–April 2026
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Kristina Sahling: Research Stay at the University of Queensland, March–April 2026
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Zachary Cooper: Research Stays in Australia and the USA, January–March 2026
Ilaria Vitulano: Research Stay at the University of Bern
The research stay from April to May 2026 was hosted by the group of Dr. Mykola Makhortykh at the Institute of Communication and Media Studies (ICMB), University of Bern. His group works on (mis)information via search engines, the use of recommendation systems and chatbots for reporting polarizing news to the role of online platforms for commemorating historical and recent conflicts. This intersects closely with the work of our research group “Platofrm Algoritms and Digital Propaganda” at WI, and we have been collaborating during the years on several projects about the spread of propaganda on search engines and digital platforms.
During the one-month stay, work was organized around two main activities. A central activity of the stay was presenting and discussing the theoretical section of my PhD thesis with members of the host group. The feedback received was highly valuable and provided me with useful insights on the theoretical model I developped in my monograph. As a result of these exchanges, I plan to incorporate the feedback received in my manuscript and move forward with the empirical part of my work.
A second focus of the stay was the advancement of a shared project between our research group from WI and the Bern group, centered on algorithmic auditing. Our study aims at analysing how online platforms manage problematic content produced by the Russian government and how their algorithms shape information environments where users are exposed to propaganda-related topics. During the stay, together with Mykola Makhortykh and our student assistants, we worked extensively on the human validation of the LLM-assisted content analysis. Since the project relies on LLMs to automatically code a large volume of multilingual content, it is essential to verify that the model's outputs are reliable and consistent. To this end, we developed a human coding scheme and worked on establishing a comparison dataset, whereby human coders independently annotate a subset of the material. This allows us to assess the LLM's coding quality by measuring agreement between the model's classifications and those produced by trained human annotators. As a result of this, preliminary data analysis was conducted and the project was presented at the ICA confernce 2026, held in Cape Town from 4 to 8 June.
During my research stay, I also attended in-person events that took place at the Institute of Communication and Media Studies:
- a guest lecture on AI discourses in the African environment, held by the Swiss ambassador to Kenya, Mirko Giulietti, during the seminar “Analysing debates in AI” by Vihang Jumle;
- a talk by Prof. Lance Bettett at an internal workshop organized by Prof. Silke Adam;
- a talk by Prof. Edda Humprecht invited at the ICMB’s monthly colloquium.
Overall, my research stay in Bern was an extremely productive and stimulating opportunity to work with Bern university colleagues in person. The visit definitely strengthened the collaboration between our Weizenbaum Institut group and the Bern one, generating not only concrete outputs for our shared work and insightful feedback for my personal PhD project, but also invaluable interpersonal and academic exchange.
Martha Stolze: Research Stay at the University of Oxford
I am very happy to have been the first Weizenbaum PhD researcher to benefit from the new Weizenbaum Institute's Outgoing Mobility Program. During my research stay at the University of Oxford from January to April 2026, I was hosted by Nicolette Makovicky at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA) and Mohsen Mosleh at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII).
At the OII, I had the opportunity to audit the courses Algorithmic Fairness and Accountability, taught by Ana Valdivia and Digital Ethics, taught by Mariarosaria Taddeo. I also presented work in progress on “Exploring the network of pro-Russian and far-right anti-gender messaging on German Telegram” at the Social Media research meeting.
In addition, I gained valuable experience by conceptualising and co-leading, together with Calvin Cheng, a mini-course on natural language processing for Area Studies students at OSGA.
The stay also enabled participation in several international academic events, including the DSA Observatory Conferencein Amsterdam, where I presented the paper “Blind spots of the DSA? Operationalizing gendered disinformation as a systemic risk”, co-authored with Philipp Darius, Rachel Griffin, and LK Seiling, as well as the inaugural session of the For Your Information Network in Copenhagen.
Overall, this stay substantially advanced my PhD research and provided valuable opportunities for academic exchange and collaboration. I am grateful for the support, conversations, and institutional connections that made this experience possible.
Kristina Sahling: Research Stay at the University of Queensland
I visited the University of Queensland in Brisbane in March and April 2026 for a research stay with Professor Andrew Burton-Jones. The purpose of the stay was to advance my dissertation by engaging directly with one of the key contributors to the Theory of Effective Use, which forms the central theoretical foundation of her doctoral research. As I had been working with this theory for the past two years, the exchange provided an important opportunity to deepen, refine, and further develop the conceptual basis of my dissertation.
During the stay, I worked closely with Professor Burton-Jones through joint discussions, structured supervision, and focused collaboration. A central part of the visit was the further development of my theoretical framing around the effective use of information systems. The direct academic exchange helped me validate and sharpen core arguments of my dissertation. In addition, I participated in several paper presentations by other guest researchers, which provided valuable insights into current international research projects and created opportunities for academic exchange beyond my own dissertation topic.
Overall, the research stay provided substantial added value for my doctoral work. It contributed directly to the completion of my dissertation, supported the development of a long-term collaboration with a leading Information Systems scholar, and opened opportunities for future joint publications, extended data collection, and continued international research cooperation. The stay was made possible through the Outgoing Mobility Program, whose financial support for doctoral researchers conducting research abroad offers a highly valuable and beneficial opportunity for international academic development.
Zachary Cooper: Research Stays in Australia and the USA
From January to March 2026, I had an extremely fulfilling experience as part of the Weizenbaum Institute’s Outgoing Mobility Program. First, I enjoyed an excellent research visit to the University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia, where I was hosted by A/Prof. James Parker. James is one of a handful of legal scholars in the world training his own Generative AI models to experiment with music-generation. In turn, we were able to have in-depth discussions about the intersection of intellectual property law and cutting-edge AI applications. We continued these conversations at the Australian Centre of the Moving Image’s ‘Future of Arts, Culture & Technology’ Symposium, where we offered critical interventions at the ‘Creative Industries & Artificial Intelligence’ summit regarding current international policymaking around AI and intellectual property.
At the University of Melbourne’s Centre for AI and Digital Ethics, Prof. Jeannie Paterson showed me some of the excellent projects they are working on at the Centre. Following this, I had the opportunity to present my latest research findings on the topic of “Authorship in AI” at the “IP & Innovation Researchers of Asia Network” in Singapore, where they were well received by leading scholars in the field.
During my exciting research visit to the United States, I had the opportunity to speak with staff members of the U.S. Copyright Office about their report on copyright eligibility and to attend a series of outstanding conferences across the country—in Washington, D.C., Boston, Berkeley, and New York City.
Finally, I spent a wonderful research stay at Monash University in Melbourne with Prof. Christopher Marsden, the director of the outstanding Digital Law Group in Melbourne. The highlight of this stay was a keynote seminar where I was able to present the research I conducted in Melbourne on AI-based tracking and surveillance. All in all, thanks to the fantastic support from the Outgoing Mobility Program, these were some very busy and extremely fulfilling months.
Felix Gaisbauer: Research Stay at KU Leuven
There is ample material to tell the history of philosophy in terms of geniuses, eccentrics, and their personal interactions. Many historians of philosophy extrapolate from these points of narration to arrive at a large-scale picture of the development of philosophy. A different way of narrating the history of philosophy is data-driven. One of its advantages is that it includes not only famous, but also transitory figures.
During my stay at KU Leuven, I collaborated with the philosopher Dr. Gregor Bös. Building on an extensive database developed by Gregor Bös and his colleagues, we created a network-based representation of how philosophers and philosophical communities referenced one another in their publications throughout the twentieth century. This makes it possible to trace, for example, how different schools of thought emerged, evolved, and interacted over time. One major research question concerns the origins of the divide between analytic and continental philosophy.
The project continuously moves between quantitative analysis and the interpretation of its results. The research stay made this interdisciplinary collaboration possible: I contributed expertise in network theory, while Bös and his colleagues provided extensive domain knowledge in the history of philosophy as well as access to the edhiphy database. In the long term, we hope to produce results that complement more qualitative approaches to the history of philosophy, making room for both the celebrated geniuses and eccentrics and their lesser-known epigones.